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Thornton Hunt letter to Leigh Hunt, December 3, 1846

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Title	Thornton Hunt letter to Leigh Hunt, December 3, 1846
Creator	Hunt, Thornton Leigh, 1810-1873
Date Original	1846-12-03
Description	Concerning his criticism of two pamphlets by Manzzini which contain appeals for interposition to relieve the Italian people from tyranny and despotism; dislikes Mazzini's manner as well as the matter of his appeal.
Note	Includes fragments in Thornton Hunt's autograph and part of an envelope addressed to him and signed by Mazzini. Letter also called "Mazzini: Comments on the Italian Patriot by Thornton Hunt".
Personal Name Subject	Hunt, Thornton Leigh, 1810-1873 Hunt, Leigh, 1784-1859 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 1805-1872
Chronological Subject	1840-1850
Type (DCMIType)	Text
Type (AAT)	Correspondence
Type (IMT)	jpeg
Digital Collection	Leigh Hunt Letters
Contributing Institution	University of Iowa. Libraries. Special Collections Dept.
Archival Collection	Brewer-Leigh Hunt Collection
Collection Guide	http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/resources/Brewer-LeighHunt.html
Location	bound MsL H943h no. 1
Rights Management	Educational use only, no other permissions given. This letter is owned by The University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections Department, and is provided here for educational purposes. It may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without written permission of the Special Collections Department.
Contact Information	Contact The University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections Department: lib-spec@uiowa.edu
Height (cm)	27.1
Width (cm)	22.2
Number of Pages	9 + 11 blank
Number of Sheets of Paper	5
Digitization Specifications	Scanned with Ricoh Aficio 2335 scanner at 600 ppi, 24-bit color. Archival tiff image available.
Date Digital	2008-07-15
Transcript	Sat., Dec. 3, 1826 . My dear Father, I have read both the pamphlets by Mr. Mazzini which you lent to me, and they produce a very melancholy impression. I do not at the moment see any opening to use the information which they contain; though I shall not neglect an opportunity should it arise. I am however so conscious of a disposition to put off anything which assumes the shape of work -- work without the stimulus of necessity or of immediate results -- that as a kind of check and test of myself I have determined to write a letter to you instead of an “article”, to satisfy you at least as to my views on the subject. That subject divides itself into two branches — the manner of Mr. Mazzini’s appeal, and the matter or it. Unfortunately the manner has become a material thing in Italian affairs . It is, I think, particularly unfortunate that such pleadings should be mixed up with special attacks on Sir James Graham. It was all very well for Mr. Thomas [?Duncombe], a kind of political knight errant, to run a tilt against the Home Secretary; but Mr. Mazzini occupies too high a position as a representative of Italian progress to be/s/ seen in these mere personal encounters. And there is to my mind a kind of idleness in making so much of Sir James Graham’s fault. He is less of a politician than a Minister: men of greater pretensions as statesmen, the originators not the administrators of policies, have uniformly resorted /--/ to the practice which is now condemned. One statesman who is allowed a European reputation for generosity and so — Fox; and the “Liberal” party had continued the practice down to the very latest day. The claim upon Sir James Graham’s resort to the established practice came before him in a shape which always exercises a strong influence over official men — an official request for the protection of official practices. I do not of course hold such an appeal to be just; but I say that Sir James Graham was one of the last men in the list of Ministers /that/ to have employed the privilege who ought to be called to account on grounds of general politics: his vocation lies in another direction. There is therefore, in my estimation, an undue bearing given to the pamphlets in this respect, and one which tends to turn aside their proper effect . / -- / I regret also to observe throughout, as I have throughout all the writings on the subject that I have come / -- / before me, two things which I cannot but consider very seriously calculated to weaken the effect of all such appeals — a tone at once of dogma, and of complaint. The dogma is not a very serious one to swallow, but it deprives the appeal of what aspect of plain sense which, in western Europe, and especially in England, /who/ would be likely to have the greatest effect. The despotism which it is the very object to put down /deprives/ derives its strength from dogma, temporal as well as spiritual. / -- / I can scarcely tell whether Mr. Mazzini’s references to sacred rights are the mere dictates of his own enthusiastic disposition, or whether there is mixed up with that some motive of / -- / policy; /to enlist/ seeking, by a kind of generalized pietism, to enlist on the side of Italian freedom some part of that feeling which makes Italy so strongly governed by religious influences; but as respects the bystander it has the effect of weakening his position. / -- / Popular government by divine right is as much a dogma as despotism by divine right; and in reason one dogma is as good as another -- and no better. But to sway the mind, the dogma must be willingly accepted; you cannot force the substitution of one for another; and you cannot even legitimately invite the abandonment of one /from/ for another by a process of reasoning: reason is the antagonist of dogma, and if once you turn to it you go altogether away into a different field. You cannot obtain any result by dogmatizing and reasoning too. But to admit dogma puts reason out of the field. If you rely for / -- / popular claims on some divine right, I do not see how you can answer another who asserts regal claims on the same tenure. The mode of appeal by complaint is still more enfeebling. The complaint here is twofold, that certain powers exercise tyranny over Italy, and that foreign nations do not interpose Both are lamentable facts, but I do not see that they are to be remedied by deploring them. The foreign interposition in particular is a thing not so much to be begged as to be compelled. That is badly expressed, but I will set forth what I mean more fully. There are two main essential conditions to all appeals for interposition -- a right apprehension of the nature of the country to whom the appeal is to be made, and a reasonal [sic] scheme of interposition. Now the English people are not an enthusiastic people; still less are they a people sympathizing with distant races who do not go their own (the English) way to work. I do not believe that many Englishmen, beyond the pale of professed politicians and literati; would go from the fireplace to the street door for the sake of promoting popular Italian interests [?still] latent. I believe that good for Italy is to be got out of England; but not by appeals to an abstract sense of justice, by complaints of ill-usage and neglect, or by pleading some divine right. To such language there is no response in the national mind, except what might be unfavourable. In the other condition lies indeed the cream of the whole subject -- the matter as well as the manner of the appeal — I mean the scheme of interposition. There is something in this part of the subject as treated by Mr. Mazzini that is most melancholy. I do not of course know what may be the purpose lurking in his own mind -- I have nothing before me but the two pamphlets which you game me; but judging by their contents, the whole proposition is vague to the last degree — to the degree of being aimless. It is worse. Taking the more practical of the two pamphlets, /it is/ as the work too of one of the / -- / ablest Italian patriots before the British Public, it suggests a grave doubt not only whether they have any distinct enterprise at all, but whether they /are/ have consented to look their real situation in the face -- /whether/ even whether they are capable of it. I / -- / should hesitate to say this in public, although it is thought with so total an absence of pride, or indeed of any feeling but a mere desire to form a distinct idea of the case, that it might be said anywhere to candid listeners. I ought to give an excuse for including an excuse where any self-reference is out of place; but there is something that startles one’s conscience, sitting quietly at the desk, in condemning the projects of /me/ men who pledge their own fortunes in the active struggle. It is however the curse of the time that men dally with words, and in fear of offence, or with a real self-referent desire to come off creditably, make half-assertions of the truth, the other half to be as it may please the listener. But speaking is left to desperadoes. If all men would say what they mean, wrong would soon be settled in the world. If then I speak without qualification it is not because I think I have a better “right” than anyone else to sit in judgment on self-devoted men; but because I do not think /myself/ my self worth an abatement of the smallest truth. I say then that the manner of Mr. Mazzini’s pamphlet is such as to make one doubt whether the Italian patriots do see their real situation or are capable of seeing it. Its facts tell us nothing new. They define indeed certain dates and name certain people and events; but I do not think that the English idea of bondage in Italy falls short of the truth. We understand it to be a kind of / -- / martial law, enforced by means of espionage and such torture as dares to survive in Europe in the Nineteenth Century under the name of legal punishment. But the Italian exiles puzzle our English understanding when they / -- / assure us of / -- / certain main facts attended in Mr. Mazzini’s pamphlet. The tyranny there painted is what we admit to be intolerable. The people we are told have, the mass of them, resolved not to tolerate it. But it is tolerated / -- /-- it continues to exist! It is no answer to say that this is only reproaching the Italians with their misfortunes: it means much more than that. If the tyranny is intolerable, the people resolved not to tolerate it, and yet the tyranny continues, there must be something in the process of resistance which does not meet the case. / -- / Either the two assertions are false, or one of them is false; or the method of action is false. I believe the first assertion; that is, I believe that the tyranny is intolerable to a [ ? ] national existence, and that it is only endured at the cost of disease and misery to the nation. I have no evidence that “the people” are resolved not to tolerate it. No doubt they are very ill contented with many things that oppress their material comfort, and especially with their poverty, wherever that does seriously oppress them. But in my limited acquaintance with the Italian “people” I never found them to have very strong or very distinct political ideas. Even their recollections of Napoleon /whe/ were more like dreamy traditions that might range with antiquity than like distinct, substantive, recent political ideas. I have observed in the Italian character an extraordinary reverence for authority; which appears to me to be reflected even in what I have called the dogma of Mr. Mazzini’s pamphlet. There is a political indolence which might make one fancy that our municipal institutions would be very troublesome to them. But the great evidence against this alleged national and unpopular resolve is furnished by such / -- / statements as Mr. Mazzini’s: the more monstrous, outrageous, oppressive, [ ? ], and intolerable the tyranny under which Italy groans, the more incredible is it that it should continue, if the / -- / mass of the people have resolved not to tolerate it. Indeed to the English understanding the proposition is merely incredible, and I may say, as one Englishman, that /it is/ I do not believe it. I do not disbelieve it merely in the palpable / -- / lack of evidence, but I disbelieve it / -- / simply because the proposition itself is incredible. But I will suppose for a moment that the two assertions were both true -- that not only is the tyranny intolerable, but that the people have resolved not to endure it, and are only prevented form consentaneous action by the divisions of their political geography and the active machinery of the tyranny. Then occurs the question, is the process of revolutionary action true? Is it calculated to enable the people to act in concert -- is it calculated to force for a brief time upon the field of Italy a clear space for action? It has never done so, and I do not think that it is calculated to do so. The proposal of the Randiera was to establish a guerilla force in the highlands as a kind of depot for revolutionary spirit and action; but such a plan has nothing in it /to/ calculated to bring the several parts of the Italian revolutionary body into communion. Its / -- / first and obvious effect, viewed a priori must be, to point out a salient point of attack by the constituted authorities, to present for defeat the revolutionary force in comminuted instalments [sic], and to entail upon revolt all the depression and discredit of defeat; renewing the lease of despotism by the eclat of victory. In fact, it has done so . I believe that a large portion of the gentry of Italy are disposed to revolt against a tyranny which much more concerns them / -- / than it does “the people”-- which outrages the sanctity of their homes, fetters their actions & even their will, and insults their cultivated understandings. I am not sure that they are agreed upon what they would have in place of what they seek to dislodge. Many desire a republic. That is a bold word for a nation that has such vast arrears of political advancement to make good. / -- / The thought will occur that they might be content to be brought up to the level of Western Europe, and to establish a “limited monarchy”-- surely a great improvement. I think a republic better than any monarchy; but not so practicable. To proclaim a republic would obtain the active and of no European Government or people; and “nonintervention” is the congenital dogma of America -- except when the intervention takes the shape of “annexation”. On the / -- / contrary, the name of republic would array against Italian revolt all the Governments of Europe. Let us suppose the Italian gentry agreed upon revolt and upon its final aim; the people not hostile -- passive, if not friendly. What is the plan of action that would occur to the English bystander? France has twice changed its Government, by two spontaneous revolutions not previously organized. But France is a very exceptional case. At those times (/ -- /) Paris was France, & perhaps to some degree it is so still. When we have effected revolutions we have done so in a much more systematic manner. So have our brethren in America; for although the Tea-riots at Boston gave all appearance of suddenness to the / -- / outburst it was long in being matured, and was organized as to its machinery for contest, with all the elaboration of an old monarchical /Government/ State. Revolutions have overturned states in South America; Greece has joined the family of “constitutional” monarchies in Europe; so has /bel/ Belgium, though the case of that country somewhat partook of French characteristics. With scarcely an exception, two great engines have been employed in /all/ these successful revolts -- engines more or less deliberately prepared, always diligently sought -- an army and a man. If the Italian nobles are of accord -- if they could make up their minds to pledge the property of their country, public and private, for procuring funds -- if they could proclaim a plan of /action/ constitution suited to the predominant opinions /of --/ of Western Europe -- perhaps if they could invite a Bourbon of the Orleans branch or a Catholic [?Coburg], to profit by the newly created throne -- then I believe they might have money, men, officers, and even the avowed aid of some foreign government. Then would they have the engines to clear a field whereon the divided peoples of Italy might take their hand in asserting national independence. Your loving son, Thornton Hunt.
Transcript By	Berendes, Brianna
Transcript Location	University of Iowa. Libraries. Special Collections Dept.

Title	Enclosure Cover
Relation - Is Part Of	Thornton Hunt letter to Leigh Hunt, Dec. 3, 1846
Digital Collection	Leigh Hunt Letters
File Name	h943h-1_Cover.jpg

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Thornton Hunt letter to Leigh Hunt, December 3, 1846

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