capital. Being endowed by nature with great penetration of mind, and a bold character, he early became ambitious of fame, and zealously embraced the principles of political liberty, which may be said to have been for many years the creed of the youth all over the continent. One day at dinner, and in presence of his uncle, young Pisa having happened to mention with seditious admiration the deeds of Brutus, Cassius, and such like classic rebels, Vanni caused him to be apprehended the following night by an officer of the state-inquisition, shut up in a coach, and removed to Rome, where he was to remain confined. But soon after young Pisa returned to his native country with the French army. Subsequently he enrolled himself in a national regiment, and served the republie of the seven months; and, under the command of the gallant chiefs Matera and Schipani, he often encountered, with more bravery than success, the numerous counter-revolutionary bands led by General Cardinal Ruffo. Being made prisoner at Portici on the bloody fall of that republic, on the 13th of June, 1799, a personage, then of some interest with the royalist party, interfered in favour of the nephew of Vanni, and saved him from the scaffold-the common fate incurred or braved by all Neapolitans who chivalrously overvalue the character of their own country. After some months of imprisonment young Pisa was banished to France. There he served in the French armies as a simple volunteer; till, by his gallantry alone, he made himself way to a lieutenancy in the dragoons of the Italic kingdom. We will scarcely mention his military achievements, which, though honourable, must give place to his civic actions. Pisa served in all the campaigns made by the Italian dragoons. When the French occupied for a second time the kingdom of Naples under Joseph Bonaparte, February 1806, and organized a new Neapolitan army, Pisa was called back from Upper Italy, and preferred to the rank of captain of horse. In this capacity he went over to Spain with the Neapolitan troops, which served as auxiliaries to the French armies in Arragon, Catalonia, and Valentia. Having there much distinguished himself by many hazardous deeds, and received several wounds, he was rewarded with the order of the Two Sicilies. Afterwards he joined the 4 grande armée in Germany with his regiment the 2d horse-chasseurs, and fought at the battle of Lutzen, was wounded again at that of Dresden, and graced with the order of legion d'honneur. Afterwards his regiment behaved so brilliantly at the battle of Leipzig, as to recommend itself to the notice and eulogy of Bonaparte himself. Pisa obtained then the post of major of horse. In the short campaign of the Austro-Neapolitans against the Viceroy Eugenius in 1814, Pisa well supported his military reputation, though now for the first time he felt reluctant to take the field against enemies by whose side he had heretofore fought in friendship, and with whom he had been trained to arms. Even better did he support it a few months afterwards in the rash attempt of King Murat in favour of Italian independence. At last the French empire and King Murat yielded to fortune, which they had so often abused. Now had vanished the phantom of military glory that had so long seduced the armies both in France and Italy from the public cause; and, all that remained for so many aspiring characters, was, either to seek real fame through political liberty, or to serve as instruments to an obscure despotism. These, and less noble considerations, produced strong discontent in the Neapolitan troops soon after the restoration, and with them Carbonari principles began to creep in. Thus the enemy seized the very palladium of despotism! The greater part of the army having been formed by the French, they knew how much they were mistrusted by the prince, and that they were suffered to exist only through policy. Veteran officers found themselves neglected, while inexperienced young noblemen, or impotent old military returned from Sicily, were placed over their heads; this was an invidious partiality, for which half of the army loudly complained against the other. At the restoration, indeed, it was decreed, that the new army should consist of sixty thousand men, and be organized on equal principles. But Italian forces were, and ever will be, suspected by the Austrians, who derive their main strength in Italy from her weakness alone. This military apparatus, therefore, displeased her new masters. The penury of the finance, added to the foreign jealousy, and the malversation But all these cautions were defeated by a young lieutenant, Morelli; who, on the night of the first of July, 1820, unexpectedly departed from his quarters at Nola with only a hundred and twenty horse of the Bourbon regiment, and marched to Avellino. At the first intelligence of his march, the town of Foggia was raised by Pisa, and that of Avellino by Deconcilj. On the 3d of July, Pisa, supporting with a part of his regiment, and some militia, the patriotic pa ty in Foggia, caused a provisional junta of government to be chosen by the principal citizens, and the constitution of the Cortes to be proclaimed as the fundamental law of the state. This first constitutional shout was afterwards echoed throughout the kingdom. But the military governor of the province, who never had expressedly consented to the revolution, perceiving that till malversation of the minister-of-war capital. This high-minded noble young mau is now no more! He dared alone to begin that revolution which gave freedom to his country but for too short a period! Few public characters were ever more attached Morelli was. He began the revolution as to their country or more disinterested than a sous lieutenant with only eighteen ducats a-month of pay (a little less than three pounds); he gallantly served in Sicily against the revolted Palei mitans as a souslieutenant; and, when Naples was sub dued, far more by frand than open force, he was still a sous-lieutenant. Being little aware of the necessary fury of a restored tyranny, and trusting in the uprightness of his actions, as well as in the solemu sanetion given by the king to the product of the he thought it unnecessary to fly from his revolution during seven months together, country. Yet, after near twenty months of imprisonment, he was most shamefully put to death on the 11th of September last, with his young friend Silvati, another lieutenant who accompanied him to Monteforte. To twenty-eight other persons, who, like them, had attempted to free their country from despotism, the punishment of death has been commuted into that of hard labour for thirty years; thirteen others have been sentenced to twenty-five years' imprisonment. Could we believe, unhappy victims were the same men who were the fact not too certain, that these had established in their country a free constitution, which was twice solemnly sworn to by the king, and existed for no less than nine months? The Neapolitans, however, have endured to see Morelli die on the scaffold! Eternal shame for them! Let the generous friends of liberty shed a tear for his unmerited fate. then then only Deconcilj led the movement at Avellino, and even in a covert manner, whilst General Pepe was obstructed in the capital, hesitated more than ever to take any part in those dangerous attempts at Foggia. Nay, marching the rest of the regiment of horse out of the town, he took a military position in the fields. These hostile demonstrations occasioned no small suspicion and alarm among the patriots at Foggia. But Pisa, an undaunted character both in civil and military dangers, knowing that the perplexity of the governor proceeded only from a doubt of success, hastened alone to Avellino to cut short all the delays of Deconcilj. Half way he met three officers of the staff, who, coming from Naples, had been discovered and arrested by the country-people that occupied in arms the roads from the capital into Apulia. There were bearers of dispatches from the government to the military governors of the three provinces, Foggia, Bari, and Basilicata, whereby, a dictatorial power being conferred upon them, they were ordered to repel by the sword all popular movements. The militia, incensed at the discovery, were ready to fall upon those messengers of tyranny; but Pisa saved them from the popular fary, and sent them back to Avellino under escort. The constitution had been already proclaimed at this last place. Pisa had scarcely arrived there, when, from the opposite side, a herald from the camp of General Carrascosa presented himself, bearing a proclamation of the king, by which a constitution to be settled in eight days was promised to the nation. That vague, and, in some respect, ridiculous promise, bore too much the appearance of an expedient of state to be credited; so no answer was returned, except the proclamation itself torn into pieces. Soon after intelligence was brought, that General Pepe led to the constitutional camp two regiments of horse and a battalion of infantry, with several superior officers. Pisa then hastened back to Foggia, and prevailed at last upon the governor to join the Constitutionalists at Monteforte. But, on their arrival with the regiment of horse, they found that the general, having been officially apprized that the constitution wished for was granted by the king, had raised the camp and marched to the capital. After the revolution was accomMONTHLY MAG. No. 374. plished, Pisa did not cease labouring for his country, and giving her proofs of his civic virtue. The great military shame incurred by the Neapolitans in making no defence for the best of causes, may be safely ascribed to the dissension of their military leaders. Private envy, as much as public perfidy, has blasted the cause of that unhappy people. There was a minister at Naples, who eagerly contended in the cabinet, that all the troops, who had retired to the camp of Monteforte for the public cause, ought to be peculiarly rewarded with promotions, extra-pay, and decorations. Whilst this measure was urged upon both the regent and General Pepe himself, as highly expedient to the state, a spirit of discontent was insidiously promoted among that part of the army which was not entitled to any reward. These practices were carried on to create enemies in the army against Pepe; who, being then captain-general, was prevailed upon to appear in public as the instigator of such partial rewards, and was represented to the disaffected officers as willing to trample upon the rights of service to gratify his private ambition. In effect, about six hundred officers, who felt themselves injured by the measure, met in arms one morning in a field near the capital, and, violently protesting against such partiality had nearly raised a military sedition. But Pisa, who had been preferred, had already set the example of civic disinterestedness, by renouncing his own promotion and persuading his comrades to imitate him, which they all did. The army, however, from that moment, conceived a strong aversion against Pepe, though he was the only trust-worthy general among the patriots; and it was not now difficult for the agents of the court wholly to divert the military from the public cause. Naples could not have been free and the rest of Italy remain under despotism. The liberty of Naples was either to bring about, within a short time, the independence of the whole peninsula, or perish itself for want of that independence. The leaders of the revolution seemed not to be so well aware of this truth as the Austrian cabinet itself. Yet it being resolved by the provisional junta to send into Upper Italy an explorator, both of the disposition of the inhabitants, and of the number of Austrian forces then in Lombardy, Pisa boldly offered himself U u for for this dangerous errand. He set out in the middle of August, and traversed all Italy as a courier dispatched to Turin. At Ferrara he learned, that the Austrians already amounted to fifty thousand men in Lombardy, whilst some more troops were stationed on the Alps. So that a chance of revolutionizing all Italy by surprise seemed already to be over. Coming back to Florence, he was informed that two Tuscan regiments at Leghorn, having shown, symptoms of a revolutionary spirit, had been separated and sent to distant places. But at Modena he was in the greatest danger of detection. Being stopped there, they were going to unseal his dispatches, when he boldly asking the Austrian commissary whether the emperor was at war with the King of Naples, and, loudly protesting against the violence offered to his character, recovered his papers, and was allowed to proceed. The national formality of the Germans, no less than his own presence of mind, extricated Pisa from that dangerous predicament. Throughout Lombardy he found the public mind better disposed to an Italian revolution than that of any other country of Italy, as the people had a double yoke to shake off; but they were totally disarmed. Besides the patriotic associations (a double edged tool, indeed, for working out of liberty, but sufficiently justified by necessity,) were little spread among them. They were equally weak in Romagna and Tuscany; where, moreover, a strong aversion prevailed towards the Neapolitan name, occasioned in some respect by the undisciplined excesses of the troops of Murat on a former occasion, and the bad success of his last enterprise upon Italy. These petty rancours among the Italians, which afford to their very oppressors a good ground for laughing at them, are a main cause of their miseries. At Turin, Pisa was told that the Piedmontese army, though it intensely abhorred the Austrians out of a military jealousy, was little disposed to promote a revolution in the state. This error, whether arising from the bad information of Pisa, or from a misconceived idea of the Piedmontese patriots themselves, proved fatal to Italy; for, had the revolution broken out in Piedmont only a few weeks sooner, or had the Neapolitan leaders but been aware of the imminency of that event, when an Anstrian army advanced towards their 3 When the executive government attempted to put down the constitution at one blow, on the 7th of December, Pisa did not desert his country. Though hardly recovered from a dangerous illness, he hastened on that night to his regiment; and, haranguing his comrades, exhorted them to remain firm in the cause of the nation, by whom they were paid, and be ready to support the parliament were it found necessary. Then, galloping throughout the capital, he endeavoured to prevent any tumults from arising among the patriots. He so far succeeded in this, that many thousands of them kept in arms within their places of rendezvous a night and day together, almost completely out of public observation. To maintain public order was then considered at Naples as a principal means of disproving all the imputations of anarchy poured down upon the revolution by the pamphleteers of the holy alliance; as if such imputa-< tions were sincerely made, and successfully to give them the lie were tantamount to the preservation of the newly acquired liberties! Let the event speak for itself. At break of day, Pisa went into the lobby of the parliament, where some deputies began already to meet; and, to encourage them to reject the message of the government, be said to them-"You never saw me here before, for this is not a place where a soldier ought often to show himself. But now the public danger draws me here. What do you fear? The army feels with you. Do you deliberate freely, then, and remember, that liberty cannot be compromised without being annihilated." War being declared against Naples, Pisa was attached to the staff of the second corps commanded by General Pepe in the Abruzzi. He was posted at Arquata with two battalions of militia, which were to throw themselves as a flying column into Serravalle, to harass the enemy on his flank, and to raise the country. But that collectitious militia, being for the most part part composed of substitutes, badly armed, worse trained, and unaccustomed to military hardships, easily yielded to the suggestions of emissaries, who spread among them the menacing proclamations of the king. Both the battalions unexpectedly disbanded the day previous to the affair of Nicti. Pisa, having spent the whole day in useless efforts to rally them, rejoined Pepe's main body at the moment when, after a brisk engagement of seven hours with all the enemy's forces, it was caught by a panic in retreat, and dispersed itself. Pisa then retired to Capua, where he was most perfidiously stopped by superior orders, together with many more officers who were to rejoin Pepe at Salerno. In this place it had been apparently resolved by the executive government, that the second corps should be reorganized in a second line. But soon after, the first corps having been disbanded with the assistance of the royal guards, Pisa was left at liberty to come to Naples. There he found every thing in confusion and dismay. Whilst many a murderer was here and there loosed upon the most determined among the patriots, to prevent them from any attempt towards a reestablishment of popular courage and public affairs; Pisa, scarcely escaping such snares, remained in the capital until it was occupied by the Austrians on the 24th of March, 1821. Then disguised like a Spanish soldier, he sheltered on-board a Spanish squadron just moored in the bay of Naples. Often from the deck of his ship did he look with tears upon those delightful shores, which were about to be desolated by the fury of re-established tyranny! Often blinded with despair, he attempted to come ashore, there to make an end of his life! Having landed again, he was soon warned that the police had been to his house a little before to arest him. All was fatally, shamefully, lost at Naples, chiefly by the fault of an executive government, which never intended to defend the state from an enemy itself had invited. Pisa was obliged to re-embark, to escape from the satellites of the police who hunted him in every direction; and, the squadron sailing some days after, he abandoned his country and went to Spain. Thence he came over to England with General Pepe. Lately, having returned to Madrid, on the 7th of July last he made a party, with a few of his countrymen, and they gallantly fought against the mutinous guards and took several prisoners. The field has no braver soldier than Pisa, and the cause of liberty no more zealous supporter. STEPHENSIANA. The late ALEXANDer Stephens, Esq. of Park House, Chelsea, devoted an active and well-spent life in the collection of Anecdotes of his contemporaries, and generally entered in a book the collections of the passing day ;—these collections we have purchased, and propose to present a selection from them to our readers, As Editor of the Annual Obituary, and many other biographical works, the Author may probably have incorporated many of these scraps; but the greater part are unpublished, and all stand alone as cabinet pictures of men and manners, worthy of a place in a literary miscellany. LORD PELHAM. LORD Pelham, while a commoner, represented the county of Sussex, as the Hon. Thomas Pelham. In 1785 we find him taking an active part relative to the Irish propositions; but he did not vote, in 1783, on Mr. Fox's India Bill, being included among the absentees. In 1788 he sided with the opposition, on the grand question relative to the Regency. On the impeachment of Mr. Hastings, this gentleman was nominated one of the managers, Dec. 5, 1787; and on Wednesday, April 16, 1788, he opened the second charge. In 1791 he spoke on the 4 |