On September 10th Garibaldi issued a proclamation to his soldiers, headed “Italy and Victor Emmanuel.”  In it the General called upon them to aid him in carrying to a successful termination the work so well begun.  Nor did he hesitate to declare that Rome must be Italian, and the line of the Alps the frontier of Italy.  He addressed another proclamation to the people in which he especially called on them to be united:  “The first need of Italy is concord in order to realize the union of the great Italian family; to-day Providence has given us this concord, since all the provinces are unanimous and labor with magnanimous zeal at the national reconstruction.  As to unity, Providence has further given us Victor Emmanuel—­a model sovereign who will inculcate in his descendants the duties which they should fulfil for the happiness of a people who have chosen him as their chief with enthusiastic homage.”  The proclamation went on to speak with kindly warmth of those Italian priests who had sided with the national cause, and declared that such conduct was a sure means of gaining respect for their mission and work.  Repeating again the demand for concord, the concluding words justly protested against all foreign interference:  “Finally (be it known) we respect the houses of others; but we insist upon being masters in our own whether it please or displease the rulers of the earth.”

Garibaldi united the Neapolitan to the Sardinian fleet, so forming an Italian naval force.  He appointed a ministry comprising Liborio Romano (who had served under Francis II), Scialoia, Cosenz, and Pisanelli; he then proceeded to promulgate the Sardinian Constitution throughout the Neapolitan Provinces.  But the Bourbon forces were still in possession of Capua and Gaeta.  It became necessary, therefore, to undertake military operations against them.

Meanwhile the agitation in the Papal Provinces was increasing.  The Pope’s Government had refused to modify its policy or agree to any reduction of its territory.  It accepted the protection of France in Rome and its immediate neighborhood, but declined further aid, as it was raising forces of its own under a French general, Lamoriciere.  These soldiers were men of various European nationalities belonging to that Roman Catholic party which was determined to maintain intact the temporal rule of the Pope as against the wishes of the vast majority of Italians, themselves Roman Catholics, who desired to substitute for that rule the constitutional sovereignty of King Victor Emmanuel.  The Italians were willing enough to remain under the spiritual headship of the Roman Pontiff, but they would not have a temporal power upheld by foreign soldiers.  The moment was, like many others, a very critical one in the history of Italy.  Garibaldi was victorious in Naples.  The Papal forces, composed chiefly of Germans and French, under Lamoriciere, were holding the inhabitants of Umbria and the Marches who were longing to join the national movement.  Indeed, some of the most influential men of those provinces, among others Marquis Filippo Gualterio of Orvieto, had already come to Turin to obtain the intervention of its Government and protection from the Papal troops, whose foreign extraction rendered them odious to the people.