On the accidental death of Sir Robert Peel in 1850 the conservative party became disintegrated, and Mr. Gladstone held himself aloof both from Whigs and Tories, learning wisdom from Sir James Graham (one of the best educated and most accomplished statesman of the day), and devoting himself to the study of parliamentary tactics, and of all great political questions.  It was then that in the interval of public business he again visited Italy, in the winter of 1850-51; this time not for mere amusement and recreation, but for the health of a beloved daughter.  While in Naples he was led to examine its prisons (with philanthropic aim), and to study the general policy and condition of the Neapolitan government.  The result was his famous letters to Lord Aberdeen on the awful despotism under which the kingdom of the Two Sicilies groaned, where over twenty thousand political prisoners were incarcerated, and one-half of the Deputies were driven into exile in defiance of all law; where the prisons were dens of filth and horror, and all sorts of unjust charges were fabricated in order to get rid of inconvenient persons.  I have read nothing from the pen of Mr. Gladstone superior in the way of style to these letters,—­earnest and straightforward, almost fierce in their invective, reminding one in many respects of Brougham’s defence of Queen Caroline, but with a greater array of facts, so clearly and forcibly put as not only to produce conviction but to kindle wrath.  The government of Naples had sworn to maintain a free constitution, but had disgracefully and without compunction violated every one of its conditions, and perpetrated cruelties and injustices which would have appalled the judges of imperial Rome, and defended them by a casuistry which surpassed in its insult to the human understanding that of the priests of the Spanish Inquisition.

The indignation created by Gladstone’s letters extended beyond England to France and Germany, and probably had no slight influence in the final overthrow of the King of Naples, whose government was the most unjust, tyrannical, and cruel in Europe, and perhaps on the face of the globe.  Its chief evil was not in chaining suspected politicians of character and rank to the vilest felons, and immuring them in underground cells too filthy and horrible to be approached even by physicians, for months and years before their mock-trials began, but in the utter perversion of justice in the courts by judges who dared not go counter to the dictation or even wishes of the executive government with its deadly and unconquerable hatred of everything which looked like political liberty.  All these things and others Mr. Gladstone exposed with an eloquence glowing and burning with righteous and fearless indignation.