On the representations of the British Government the Emperor withdrew his fleet in January, advising Francis II. to renounce a hopeless resistance.  But at this eleventh hour the King had adopted the principle of ‘no surrender,’ and he meant to stick to it.  It is difficult to blame him; at anyrate, much more serious is the blame due to the methods of warfare which he was to adopt or to approve thereafter.  His young Queen, who was frequently seen on the ramparts encouraging the artillerymen at their guns, had probably much to do with his virile resolution.  The fortress was now attacked by land and by sea, and the bursting of a powder-magazine inside the walls hastened its doom.  On the 15th of January the Neapolitans laid down their arms, the King having left his dominions by sea.  The first act of the conquerors in the half-ruined town was to attend a mass for the repose of the souls of the brave men, friends and foes, who had fallen during the siege.  Noisy rejoicings would have been unseemly, for the vanquished were fellow-countrymen.

The telegram announcing the fall of Gaeta went to Caprera; Garibaldi read it, and a weight was taken off his mind.  ’Civil war is at an end,’ he announced to the little party round the supper-table; ’Cialdini with our army is in Gaeta; now the Italians will not cut one another’s throats any more.’  Later in the evening he seemed so depressed that they thought him ill; Colonel Vecchj went to his bedside to discover what was the matter.  He found him reading the Times, and inquired why he had become so suddenly sad.  After a pause, Garibaldi said:  ’Poor boy!  Born at the foot of a throne and perhaps not by his own fault, hurled from it.  He too will have to feel the bitterness of exile without preparation.’  ‘Is that all?’ asked Vecchj.  ‘Do you think it nothing?’ was the answer.  ‘Why then,’ persisted Vecchj, half in jest, ‘did you go to Marsala?’ ’It was the duty of us all to go,’ Garibaldi said quickly, ’else how could there have been one Italy?’

Francis II. would have been happy had he found counsellors to persuade him to keep pure such titles to sympathy as he then possessed.  Decorum, if not humanity, should have urged him to retire, surrounded by the solitary flash of glory cast on his fallen cause by the brave defence of Gaeta.  But the revolution, the new Islam, if it could not be conquered must be made to suffer for its triumph.  Hence the exiled King was advised to call in murder, pillage and rapine as accomplices.  The political brigandage which followed the downfall of the King of the Two Sicilies began after the battle of the Volturno and extended over five years.  Its effect on the general situation was nil; it harassed and distracted the Italian Government and created the odious necessity of using severe repressive measures, but it never placed the crown in danger.  One effect it did have, and that was to raise all over Italy a feeling of reprobation for the late dynasty,