Correspondence Relating To John Cam Hobhouse

Author : John Cam Hobhouse Baron Broughton
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (27 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Letter from John Hobhouse, Rome, to Miss Bentley, 1817 May 1 written by John Cam Hobhouse Baron Broughton and published by . This book was released on 1817 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describing, in detail and at length, the conditions in Rome since the defeat of the French, with particular reference to political and religious matters; saying "I have in vain longed for an opportunity of writing to you but the impediments to correspondence are greater here even than usual - It has been lately discovered that besides the hands of government there are other delays thrown in the way of letters to England : for a rascally clerk of the post office has been found out to have been for some time in the practice of throwing the letters for our islands in the fire merely for the sake of the two shillings of postage which gain has been very fatal to several heirs and other dependents here who have received epistles cominatory from parents & guardians for their silence - It will give you some notion of the state of municipal justice here when you know that this malefactor instead of being executed, which he might have been perhaps for treading on a cardinal's toe, was only dismissed from his place, and that in order to prevent insidious remarks three or four others received their congé at the same time - The cardinal Gonsalvi [Consalvi]] secretary of state has the reputation of being a vigorous statesman and nothing can be a greater proof of this persuasion than a caricature which represents his holiness stepping in the snow-traces which Napoleon who is walking before him has left for his follower - Indeed the cardinal has mounted a very respectable gendarmerie and has made the roads in the pontifical states actually passable which they were not before his administration : but notwithstanding the gaols are full of criminals capitally convicted no executions take place and it seems that even murder is to be retaliated rather by damnation in the next world than death in this - You have heard of the new constitution here; which certainly although it is not of the most objectionable kind is still something and would remedy some of the grosser faults of present institutions were it carried into effect -which it is not except only in the solitary particular that an accused person shall be confronted by his witnesses and his judges - A few months ago a culprit was examined by a tribunal and then remanded to prison - In the meantime the accuser and witnesses were brought before the same tribunal & interrogated - then the process of the interrogating of the culprit and that of the others being copied out on the same paper were handed up to a judge who had never seen either party and who delivered sentence, in consequence of which the prisoner after waiting an indefinite time totally ignorant of his fate was taken out either to be released or to be led into the public place and knocked in the head - I speak literally for the execution was carried into effect by placing the condemned in a chair blindfolded and after a prayer allowed, knocking him down, chair and all, by a blow given suddenly on the back of the head with an iron bar - Whilst he was sprawling, an assistant ran up and cut his throat - This was the capital punishment reintroduced by the return of the Pope and which Gonsalvi [sic] has abolished for the guillotine although the use of this revolutionary instrument, as I before said, seems to prevent the justice of the Pope, who is, since the charge, with much greater difficulty brought to sign a death warrant. He has also abolished the Torture. I do not mean the interrogatory torture, but the punishment of minor offenses by raising men in the air with ropes tied to their wrists reverted over their heads and then letting them fall suddenly a horror which was with the above mentioned watching shown off in the Piazza del Popolo when the disastres of Napoleon brought back the good old regime - Gonsalvi has put a stop of these scenes and has likewise made something like a tribunal for regular trials - It would have been much better to have put the code Napoleon into activity again : but this he would have found impossible and even what he has done has gained him the aversion of a large & powerful party of restored priests - When the Pope dies, an event not far off from a man of 76 or 77 - Gonsalvi will be dismissed - at least the chances are considerably against him - and then the old abuses will be in full vigour restored & cherished - His constitution, except in the above article, although it abounds with provisions, has not yet begun to be acted upon and such as regret the simplicity and definition of Napoleon's code pretend that the whole is extremely defective;" adding "They have gone so far back as to return to the old method of computing time by the 24 instead of 12 hours : although the change has been found attended with extreme inconvenience to a people so long accustomed to French reckoning;" relating the news of the declaration of a miracle performed by a woman in the Church of Santa Croce and questions surrounding a possible miracle performed by the Pope [Pope Pius VII] in 1811; discussing the misconceptions about the place of the church and religion under Napoleon and in post-Napoleonic Italy; concluding "The present masters of Italy know as much of the men as of the soil they have resubdued - a friend of yours writing to me the other day from Venice tells me that the Vienna decree for installing the new patriarch directs that he shall proceed to St. Marc's church (in Venice) in a coach and four!!! These learned topographers are those whom Lord C. calls the natural original masters of Italy - Bad however as this part of the world is off under the golden age of restoration, we English are pitied even by the miserable and whenever the said Lord or any of his agents have shown their faces, laughed at by all parties, as the dupes and tools of ignorant presuming adventurers - The insurrection of our paupers is not so much wondered at as the acquiescence of our gentry : and the cowardly cruelty of the government is the object not so much of horror as of surprise - The devil take your air guns."