Taking advantage of the troubles in Sicily, Garibaldi led a
small expedition to that island, which there landed, and began those
operations which had their appropriate termination, in five months, in
the addition of all the territories of the wretched Francis II., except
Gaeta, to the dominions of the Sardinian King. The importance of
Garibaldi's undertaking it is quite impossible to overrate; but of what
account could it have been, if the Austrians had stood to Italy in the
same position that they held at the opening of 1859? Of none at all.
Garibaldi is preeminently a man of sense, and he would never have
thought of moving against Francis II., if Francis Joseph had been at
liberty to assist that scandalous caricature of kings. Or, if he had
been tempted to enter upon the project, he would have been "snuffed
out" as easily as was Murat, when, in 1815, he sought to recover the
Neapolitan throne. If Austrian ships had not prevented him from landing
in Sicily, Austrian troops would have destroyed him in that island.
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