CHAPTER II.

THE TWO SICILIES AT THE SPANISH CONQUEST, 1734-35.

The Two Sicilies had belonged to Austria for about 14 years, when a war breaking out between Austria and Spain, the Infant Charles Bourbon, son of Philip V. of Spain, invaded Naples by land in 1734, overthrew the Austrians, took possession of the capital, and carrying his arms beyond sea, made himself master of Sicily in the following year. From that memorable epoch to the present time, both the Sicilies have been under the Spanish Bourbons, with a single and short intermission at the beginning of the present century. From 1806 to 1815 the Hither Sicily was governed by French usurpers, while Sicily Proper was subject, as before, to the son of the Spanish conqueror.

Naples.-In 1734, the realm of Naples contained about 4,000,000 inhabitants. This small population comprised two classes of societythe feudal class, which inhabited baronial towns, and the demesnal class, which occupied royal burghs. The former, it is believed, constituted three-fourths of the people. The riches and prosperity of the two classes formed a striking contrast to their relative numbers. The demesnal population, governed by the viceroy, directly or indirectly, was in a thriving state; the feudal, subject to the barons and the clergy, was wretchedly situated. In many baronial towns, where mills and ovens were wanting, the vassals were under the necessity of pounding their corn in mortars, and baking their bread in embers; and, throughout the feudal territory, the peasants lived in straw and mud hovels, open to the weather, and furnished only with a flock bed on trestles, upon which all the household slept in common with the dogs. All branches of industry were in a backward state. Husbandry was slovenly; manufactures were rude; and commerce was insignificant. Inland traffic, confined to the intermediate towns between the capital and the Roman frontier, was equally unimportant with maritime trade, which was carried on principally under foreign flags.

The government of the state was monarchical. The legislative powers were vested in a sovereign, whose will was made known through a supreme giunta, called the Council of State, the residence of which was at Vienna. The executive functions were committed to a subordinate giunta, called the Collateral Council, which held its sittings at Naples. The civil and criminal laws were not the same for all classes of society. The vassals of the barons and the clergy were subject to the feudal and ecclesiastical institutes; while the demesnal population was governed, according to municipal usage, by nine codes, called the Roman Law, the Byzantine, the Lombard, the Norman, the Suabian, the Angevine, the Aragonese, the Austro-Spanish, and the Imperial, from the nations and dynasties by which Naples had been successively conquered. The criminal procedure was barbarous and inhuman. The witness, if voluntary, was not confronted with the accused; if reluctant, he was liable, equally with the accused, to be put to the torture, and compelled to give evidence. In the demesne, the laws were administered by the king's judges, who were usually court favourites; in the feudal territory, justice was distributed by the baronial judges, who were, for the most part, pettifogging lawyers. Everywhere partiality and corruption went openly hand in hand. Capital punishments for murder and robbery were, in

the feudal territory, either carried into execution, or commuted for money by the feudatories, who kept men-at-arms at their beck and call for either purpose. In the demesne, the viceroy enjoyed the right of pardoning for murder.

The affairs of the capital were directed by a corporate body, called "the Deputation of Nobles," which, as the feeble representation of the extinct parliament, exercised a slight influence over the king's vicegerent. The demesnal towns, or royal burghs, were intrusted to presidents invested with military as well as civil authority. The feudal towns were governed by the barons and prelates, to whom they severally belonged. The government of the interior was unsettled and irregular. The revenue of the state, amounting to 2,309,500 ducats, (384,9067.), arose from many sources; as the rent of crown lands, the profits of royal monopolies, the produce of iron-works, the state lottery, the customs and consumption duties, &c. The army, about 20,000 strong, was in a loose state of discipline; the naval force consisted of a few galleys, manned. by convicts and captives, chained to the oar. The education-of youth was in the hands of the Jesuits; the celebration of public worship was conducted by an overgrown body of regular and secular clergy; twothirds of the feudal territory belonged to the priests and friars, who formed about a thirty-sixth part of the whole population.

Sicily.—At the landing of the Infant Charles, Sicily contained about 1,000,000 inhabitants. This slender population was, like the Neapolitan, divided into the feudal and dernesnal classes, of which the former constituted five-eighths of the Sicilian people.* Public industry, in all its branches, was in a sickly state; foreign trade was monopolised by the French, the Genoese, and the Tuscans, of whom the latter two sailed as often under the English flag as under their own, as a safeguard against the Barbary cruizers, by whom the Italian flags were little respected.

The Sicilian monarchy was of a mixed character: the legislative functions were vested in a sovereign, but the regal power was controlled in some degree by parliamentary authority. The executive functions. were exercised by a viceroy or lord-lieutenant, who presided, as at Naples, over a Collateral Council, established in the capital of the realm.

The laws of Sicily formed an immense collection of Roman, Norman, and Suabian institutes, royal decrees, pragmatic sanctions, and parliamentary statutes, which, by their darkness and inconsistency, placed life and property in imminent danger. In the barony, civil and criminal law were administered by the baronial judges, from whose sentence no appeal was allowed to the dissatisfied suitor. In the demesne, the administration of justice was intrusted to the king's judges, whose decision was final in criminal cases, but reversible in civil, upon appeal to the provincial courts. Felons were tried by a criminal tribunal, over which a chief justice presided. Petty larcenies were punished by the local authorities in a summary manner. In every large town an officer, called the Captain of Justice, pursued the offender; another, called the Fiscal, brought him to trial; and a third, called the Criminal Judge, declared him guilty or not guilty. The promptness and simplicity of the criminal

*It appears by the census of 1653 that out of 285 cities aud towns, having a total population of 873,742, only 43 belonged to the demesne, and 242 to the barony or feudal territory. The inhabitants of the demesne amounted to 297,644, those of the barony to 576,098.-(Giornale di Statistica, vol. iv., p. 235.)

procedure were overbalanced by its sternness, corruption, and partiality. The captain of justice, who was answerable for all robberies committed between sunrise and sunset, made amends for occasional losses by levying regular contributions, at stated seasons, on his district. The judge, who, as well as the fiscal, was appointed by the barons and the clergy, was the ready tool of his masters, for good or for evil. At their command or intercession, he condemned or spared the delinquent. In the capital civil law was administered, in the last instance, by a great court, and criminal law by a captain of justice and two assessors, whose sen-. tence, however, was reversible by a criminal tribunal. The criminal procedure rested on the extorted confession of the supposed delinquent. To obtain this questionable proof, every species of cruelty was practised. In misdemeanours, the wrists of the accused were bound together so tightly as to stop the circulation of the blood: in felonies and high treasons, red-hot irons were applied to the soles of the feet, and splinters of reed were thrust under the nails. If the torture proved ineffectual, the accused was thrown into a deep underground dungeon, of the smallest size and most horrible kind. Immured in a damp and dark cell, of eight or ten feet long by three or four broad, the prisoner lay upon straw, bound hand and foot, until he made the desired confession. Such, at least, was the procedure in the capital. In the provinces torture was not in use; but hardened malefactors and youthful offenders were huddled together in gaols, which, from their filth and dampness, were hardly fit shelter for the beasts of the field.

The revenues of demesnal towns were administered by royal jurats, who, accountable only to a corrupt board, called the "Tribunal of Royal Patrimony," usually made their fortunes during a short term of office. The revenue of the state was derived partly from customs inwards and outwards, levied by royal authority, and partly from donatives voted by a parliament, the constitution of which body requires a brief explanation. The ancient parliament of Sicily was composed of three arms -the military, the ecclesiastical, and the demesnal. The military consisted of 124 feudatories, entitled princes, dukes, marquesses, counts, and barons respectively. The ecclesiastical consisted of 61 prelates, under various denominations. The demesnal consisted of 46 representatives of demesnal towns. In the military arm, every feudatory had as many votes as he had fiefs: the Prince of Butera, the president, had no less than 18. In the ecclesiastical and demesnal arms, absent members could vote by proxy. As the feudatories were exempt from new taxes, the prelates were looking up for promotion, and the representatives were, for the most part, place-holders or place-hunters, the demands of the viceroys seldom met with stubborn resistance. The three arms debated apart, and communicated their separate votes by their respective ambassadors. Parliament met only once in three years, and usually sat for only six or eight hours, or at most a single night. The prorogation was signalized by a grand display of favours: honours and decorations, preferments and offices, were showered upon the members most distinguished for servility to the court. Yet, rare as were its meetings, and short its sessions, the parliament was not wholly useless. During the long recess, a giunta of nine members, taken equally from the three arms, and called the "Deputation of the Realm," controlled the viceregal government, watched over the national liberties, and held the public purse. As representatives of the

parliament, the deputies fixed the contingent payable by each arm to the general revenue, received the several quotas, and issued monies from the bank, deposited, in their name, for the wants of the public service.

Instruction was in Sicily, as in Naples, committed to the Jesuits. Public worship was conducted by a clergy chiefly remarkable for its. wealth and numbers. The Sicilian church differed from the Neapolitan in being subject to the king, as apostolic legate, instead of being ruled by a papal nuncio, as in other Catholic countries. The Holy Office, or Inquisition, the introduction of which into Naples had been firmly and successfully resisted, had taken root in Sicily, and put forth its branches on all sides, to the perversion of the public feeling, and the distortion of the national judgment.

CHAPTER III.

REIGN OF CHARLES III. OVER THE TWO SICILIES FROM 1734-35 TO 1759. Naples.-Such was the state of the Two Sicilies when the Infant Charles ascended the throne of both countries, under the title of Charles III. Well aware that the chief cause of Neapolitan misery was the overgrown power of the barons and the clergy, he resolved to lay the axe to the root of the tree, and to attack the first principles of feudal authority. Laying down the maxim, that no one should come between the sovereign and the subject, he narrowed the feudal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, took away the right of compounding punishments, and prohibited the barons from keeping men-at-arms to enforce judicial sentences. This object being attained, Charles followed up his plan of undermining feudal power, by inviting the great barons to court, and by treating them with studied kindness, in order to attach them to his person and family. The lesser nobles, dazzled by the royal condescension, quitted their castles and domains, and flocked to the capital, where luxury and extravagance soon plunged them deep into debt. Forced to mortgage or sell their estates for the purpose of satisfying creditors, they sank into obscurity, and made way for the lawyers and money-lenders, who, steadily rising as the nobles declined in importance, came at length to constitute a third order of Neapolitan society.

General industry was promoted, by the encouragement and facilities given to commerce and manufactures. The king having resolved that his troops should be dressed in Neapolitan cloth, many French and German weavers settled at Arpino, and set up woollen manufactures, after the manner of their several countries. Inland trade was facilitated by the construction of carriage-roads around the metropolis, and foreign trade was protected by commercial treaties, fostered by the security of property and freedom of religion guaranteed to aliens, and relieved from oppression by the revisal of the tariff. The exportation of corn, hitherto restricted, now became free, to the mutual benefit of the grower and

consumer.

The constitution of the government continued the same; the distribution of power underwent alteration. The legislative functions were still vested in the king, who presided over a council of state. The viceroyalty was abolished as a useless appendage. The executive functions were committed to a board, called the Camera di Santa Chiara, by which the Collateral Council was superseded. For the use of the reformed

magistracy, a new code was drawn up by a body of eminent jurists. The civil and criminal laws, however, were not materially altered: the civil procedure was simplified, but the criminal process was neglected. The government of provinces was entrusted to military officers, well fitted, by their character and habits, to prevent the barons from oppressing the peasantry. The finances were adjusted. For about 14 years after Charles's accession, donatives were raised, as before, by_direct taxation. In 1748 they ceased to form a branch of the revenue. Various imposts had been suppressed in 1741, and an income-tax of five per cent. upon real property had been established in Naples. Many heavy duties, long mortgaged to the public creditor, were now redeemed by the state, and appropriated to the revenue.

To give efficiency to the defence of the country, the strength of the army was raised from 20,000 to 24,000 men, and from the latter amount to 30,000 during the reign of Charles. The matériel shared his attention in common with the personnel: cannon foundries and armouries of all kinds were set up on a large scale, and the port of the capital was strongly and skilfully fortified. The formation of a navy occupied the royal care. A nautical college was founded, and a dock-yard traced out. Shipwrights and pilots were sought out and enlisted, and seamen were enrolled in considerable numbers. The result was soon apparent. A fleet, consisting of two ships of the line, two frigates, and ten small craft, built and equipped at Naples, caused the Neapolitan flag, formerly insulted with impunity, to be respected by the Barbary corsairs.

The interests of literature and science were promoted by the institution of societies and academies; and the wants of poverty were relieved by the establishment of a poor-house, endowed with ample funds.

Sicily. The benefits derived by Sicily from the government of Charles were fewer and less substantial than those reaped by Naples. Merchant shipping, indeed, was protected from danger by the erection of moles or breakwaters at Palermo and Girgenti, and the home trade derived convenience and advantage from the institution of a tribunal of commerce. Public health, too, was secured against contagion and infection by the establishment of quarantines; and sickness and want were assuaged and alleviated by means of a public hospital and a poor-house. The general structure of the local administration was the same as before; but the machinery of the supreme government was somewhat altered by the establishment at Naples of a Giunta di Sicilia, for the speedier despatch of Sicilian affairs.

CHAPTER IV.

REIGN OF FERDINAND I. OVER THE TWO SICILIES. PART I. FROM 1759 TO 1806.

Charles III. having succeeded in 1759 to the Spanish monarchy, upon the death of his father, Ferdinand VI. of Spain, relinquished the throne of Naples and Sicily to his third son, Ferdinand, agreably to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, by which the future union of the Spanish and Italian crowns had been expressly forbidden. Ferdinand ascended the throne under the strange denomination of Ferdinand the Fourth of Naples and Third of Sicily. Destined to be called hereafter "Ferdinand the First King of the Two Sicilies," he will be designated by the latter title in