day, in the presence-chamber, told Don Diego
what he thought of him, and before the
emperor's ambassador and divers knights and
gentlemen, challenged him to fight with swords.
For which our rash Scotchman suffered nine
weeks' imprisonment in the Marshalsea. But
this tenacious man still pressed his claims
for redress, and on the death of King James
preferred a bill of grievance to the Upper
House. This suit he daily pressed for seventeen
weeks; but, unfortunately, just as his case was
handed over to the Lord Keeper for decision,
the wrong-headed King Charles dissolved the
parliament. Upon which Lithgow seems to
have started off, cripple as he was, on a mendicant
kind of tour in Scotland, and so passes away
from our knowledge into dark oblivion.

The sufferings of this poor Scotchman show
us the crimes that led to the almost maniacal
hatred entertained by the English against the
Spaniard, and give us a glimpse of the wrongs
which our English pirates and buccaneers long
afterwards cruelly avenged.

AN ARTICLE OF IMPEACHMENT
AGAINST TURIN.

THE following real narrative is written by an
English lady (sister-in-law of an English member
of parliament), married to an Italian gentleman,
born in Venice and educated in an Austrian
military school, which he left to join the national
army of Italy in the campaigns of 1848 or '49.
After the disastrous issue of that war, he left
Italy for South America, where he continued to
serve in Monte Video, until the outbreak of
hostilities between Italy and Austria in 1859 recalled
him to his country. He served in that war
under Garibaldi, with the Nicotera brigade, and
had his rank confirmed in the regular army;
but subsequently left the service, being dissatisfied
(like other members of the party of
action to which he belongs) with the conduct of
the government. He is, of course, regarded,
and with reason, as not well-affected to the
present régime; and the conviction that he is one
of the " ill disposed," is, no doubt, at the bottom
of the treatment described herein.

But making all allowances for this, and also
for the difficulties of a newly-established
government, compelled to work in many branches of
administration with the tools of the old and
rotten system it has replaced (and this more
especially in such odious employments as those
belonging to jails, and the lower departments of
the police), it will, we believe, be felt monstrous
by Englishmen that a man should be subjected
for months to such an imprisonment as is here
described, and then released without any specific
charge publicly brought against him, and with no
opportunity of confronting his accusers. The
account is made public, as a strong illustration
of a fundamental vice in the constitution of Italy,
and, indeed, in the constitution of almost every
continental state—the want of proper guarantees
and machinery for securing individual
liberty—the real keystone of all political liberties,
as we in England are well assured.

To pass some law equivalent to our Habeas
Corpus Act, should be the first business of the
Italian government; or, if ministers do not move
in the matter, of the Italian opposition. They
would, by so doing, be advancing the real
interests of their country, immeasurably more than
by contriving plots, or fermenting disaffection.

The story told in this paper—and its statements
may be implicitly relied upon—shows that
there are abuses requiring exposure in the
prisons of the Ré Galant'uomo, as well as in those
of Bomba, or Bombalino. It is quite as important
that the abuses of the former should be
known in this country as that those of the latter
should be known. Italians are, with good
reason, sensitive to English opinion; and this
sensitiveness may be more usefully appealed to,
to stimulate the removal of grievous evils and
oppressions, than for any other purpose.

With this preface, we leave the gallant
English wife of our Genoese prisoner to tell her
interesting and unvarnished story.

You know, I believe, that my husband and I
were living in the same house with Mrs. N. She
had just returned from La Spezia, where she had
been visiting the wounded Garibaldi, and taking
supplies of lint, linen, medicines, cordials, &c.,
in the fulness of one of the warmest and most
generous hearts I ever met, when my brother
and sister-in-law, with S., arrived in Genoa in
September last, on their way to the same object
of attraction. Our friends, the T., had preceded
them only two days before, accompanying
Dr. P. As my brother had a vacant seat in
his carriage, he offered it to me. When we
returned to Genoa, my husband informed us, to our
amazement, that the police had entered Mrs.N.'s
house—she being absent at the time—had broken
open her boxes, drawers, &c., and carried off an
immense bundle of her private letters. My husband,
who was present, in vain protested against
the proceedings, stating that Mrs. N. was a
British subject; but the head of the poliziotti,
a certain Ansaldi, informed him that it was no
use for him to protest, as he was not an Italian,
but a Venetian. Such language is not surprising
in a police-officer, seeing that the government
which calls itself Italian, has constantly refused
to recognise the thirty thousand Venetian exiles
who have helped to win Sicily and Naples to
the Italian crown.

You may imagine the dismay of all Mrs. N.'s
English children, who of course had never seen
or heard of such proceedings except in the case
of criminals, and whose poor little wits were
utterly bewildered and confused at this violation
of their mother's dwelling.

Next morning, my husband, who did not
anticipate any serious consequences from this
proceeding, as he foolishly imagined that Mrs. N.
would easily obtain redress as an Englishwoman,
came to Genoa to join our party, returned from
Spezia the night before, and help me to play the
part of cicerone. An hour afterwards two open