When the right honourable gentleman speaks of the last campaign, he does not mention the horrors by which some of these successes were accompanied; Naples, for instance, has been, among others (what is called) delivered; and yet, if I am rightly informed, it has been stained and polluted by murders so ferocious, and cruelties so abhorrent, that the heart shudders at the recital.  It has been said, that not only were the miserable victims of the rage and brutality of the fanatics savagely murdered, but that in many instances their flesh was devoured by the cannibals, who are the advocates, if the rumours which are circulated be true.  I will mention a fact to give Ministers the opportunity, if it be false, to wipe away the stain that must otherwise affix on the British name.  It is said that a party of the Republican inhabitants at Naples took shelter in the fortress of Castle del Uovo.  They were besieged by a detachment from the royal army, to whom they refused to surrender, but demanded that a British officer should be brought forward, and to him they capitulated.  They made terms with him under the sanction of the British name. It was agreed that their persons and property should be safe, and that they should be conveyed to Toulon. They were accordingly put on board a vessel, but before they sailed, their property was confiscated, numbers of them taken out, thrown into dungeons, and some of them, I understand, notwithstanding the British guarantee, absolutely executed.[21]

This appalling narrative, which was never refuted, is really too horrible to ponder over.  It puts in the shade any responsibility Napoleon had for the death of the Duc d’Enghien.  It is needless to enlarge on the silly and altogether baseless attacks that were not only allowed to be made, but, we have good grounds for stating, were manufactured by members of the Government and their agents, and circulated for the purpose of distracting the public mind from their own iniquities, and inflaming bitter passions and prejudices by accusing Napoleon of deeds of blood for which he was in no greater degree responsible than were they.  The nations were all out for blood at that period (just as they are now), and each claimed a monopoly of all the virtues.  “Down, down, with the French is my constant prayer,” shouts our greatest hero, and by way of addendum, he announces in Christ-like accents that he hates a Frenchman as he hates the devil.  “Down, down, with the British is our constant prayer” shout back the French, who are at present our Allies against another nation who were our Allies against them at that time, showing that Fraternity is decidedly a possible consummation, though it fluctuates from one to another with amazing eccentricity.