continue to govern in the Two Sicilies, that the Dukes should be restored to their Duchies, and that Venetia should be guarantied to Austria.  He felt this, as the terms of the treaties that were made very clearly show; for he was careful to abstain from pledging himself to anything of a definite character.  If he had perfected his original work, and been possessed of the power to effect a new settlement of Italy, he would, we presume, have stipulated for the continuance of the Bourbon power in the southern portion of the Peninsula and in Sicily; while the much talked-of purpose of creating an Italian Kingdom or Duchy for Prince Napoleon would probably have been carried out, and that gentleman have been established on the Arno.  To the Sardinian monarchy would have been assigned the spoils taken from Austria,—­Venice and Lombardy.  The change in his political plans was the consequence of the change in his military plan,—­though either change may be pronounced the cause or the effect, according to the point from which the observer views the entire series of transactions.  Thus the peace of 1859 may be considered to have been a benefit to Italy, just as the war it terminated had been.  The war freed her from Austrian dominion; the peace, from its character, and from the circumstances under which it was made, left her people at liberty to act as they pleased in the fair field that had been won for their exertions by the skill and courage of the French and Sardinian armies.

The destinies of Italy being placed in her own hands, the Italians were as prompt as politic considerations would allow them to be in promoting the unification of their country.  Central Italy soon became a part of the constitutional monarchy which had grown up under the shadow of the Alps.  This could not have happened, if Napoleon III. had chosen to veto the proceedings of the Italians, which had virtually nullified one of his purposes.  That he consented to this large addition to the power of Sardinia on the condition of receiving Savoy and Nice is by no means unlikely; and we do not think that Victor Emanuel was either unwise or wanting in patriotism in parting with those countries for the benefit of Italy.  Taking advantage of the troubles in Sicily, Garibaldi led a small expedition to that island, which there landed, and began those operations which had their appropriate termination, in five months, in the addition of all the territories of the wretched Francis II., except Gaeta, to the dominions of the Sardinian King.  The importance of Garibaldi’s undertaking it is quite impossible to overrate; but of what account could it have been, if the Austrians had stood to Italy in the same position that they held at the opening of 1859?  Of none at all.  Garibaldi is preeminently a man of sense, and he would never have thought of moving against Francis II., if Francis Joseph had been at liberty to assist that scandalous caricature of kings.  Or, if he had been tempted to enter upon