street-fighting.  Unfortunately the same mercy was not extended to some of the secret agents of Maniscalco, head of the Sicilian police, who, discovered in hiding-places by the mob, were murdered before any protection could be given them.  At the time the act of barbarity was judged, even by English observers, with more leniency than it deserved (because cruelty can have no excuse), so great was the disgust excited by the most odious system of espionage ever put in practice.

The convention bore the signatures of ’Ferdinando Lanza, General-in-Chief,’ and of ’Francesco Crispi, Secretary of State to the Provisional Government of Sicily.’  One article provided for the consignment of the Royal Mint to the victors; a large sum was stored in its coffers, and Garibaldi found himself in the novel position of being able to pay his men and the Sicilian squadre, and to send large orders for arms and ammunition to the Continent.

General Letizia made two journeys to Naples, and on his return from the second he came invested with full powers to treat with Garibaldi for the evacuation of the city.  On the 7th of June, 15,000 royal troops marched down to the Marina to the ships that were to take them away.  At the entrance of the Toledo, the great main street of Palermo, Menotti Garibaldi was on guard, on a prancing black charger, with a few other Red-shirts of his own age around him, and before this group of boys defiled the might and pomp of the disciplined army to which King Bomba had given the thoughtful care of a life-time.

The closing formalities which wound up these events at Palermo formed a fitting ending to the dramatic scenes which have been briefly narrated.  On the 19th, General Lanza went on board the Hannibal to take leave of the British admiral.  He was covered with decorations and attended by his brilliant personal staff.  There, in the beautiful bay, lay the ship on board which he was to sail at sunset, and twenty-four steam transports were also there, each filled with Neapolitan troops.  The defeated general was deeply moved as he walked on to the quarter-deck.  ’We have been unfortunate,’ he said—­words never spoken by one officer of unquestioned personal courage to another without striking a responsive chord.  When he quitted the Hannibal, the English admiral ordered the White Flag of the King of the Two Sicilies to be hoisted at the foretop-gallant masthead for the last time in Sicilian waters; and a salute of nineteen guns, the salute due to the direct representative or alter ego of a sovereign, speeded the parting guest.  Thus, wrapped in the dignity of misfortune, vanished the last semblance of the graceless and treacherous thraldom of the Spanish Bourbons in the capital of Sicily.  The flag of Italy was run up on the tower of the Semaphore.  Everywhere the revolution triumphed except at Messina, Milazzo and Syracuse.  Even Catania, where a rising had been put down after a sanguinary struggle, was now evacuated and left to itself.