On this page
-
Text (2)
-
! L 7g THE L E A PER. [No. 298, Saturday...
-
COLONEL TURR. The exiles who have relied...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The "Court Circular" On Religion. In The...
the' desire to leave it is the desire to exercise not ' religious' but irreligious liberty . " Of course the Dissenters do not mean that stinted grant of liberty : they would " remove all barriers to civil equality on religious grounds ; " by which we understand them to mean that religion shall not be made the pretext for any kind of restraint upon liberty of person or discussion . That is the only safeguard , indeed , for religion . As soon as you place discussion under restraint , you transfer the safe keeping of religion from the
care of refinement , of knowledge , of intellect , by which it is best guarded equally against fanaticism and dogmatic scepticism , and you place it under the guard of the police , a body so little stored with reasoning that its ultima ratio is soon brought into the argument —the prison , the rack , or the scaffold . In some countries , indeed , they appear to avoid this difficulty by giving the jurisdiction to a peculiar band of police—a sacred police , the clergy ; but the result is , that while the tribe of" Beaks" is inflamed with the odium
theologicum most fatal to impartiality , justice , or moderation , the servants of God contract the fiercer vices of the Beak tribe , and you have a swaggering , cruel clergy and a blindly bigoted police in one body . The cowled policeman claims and obtains the right of entry into every house , and has a general warrant for putting down even thought within the sacred precincts of home . Witness the suppression of books and schools in Austria—if , indeed , any witness be needed .
It is the more desirable to impress this truth upon the friends of " civil and religious liberty , " since they have not always recognised it . We admit the success reported by the Three Denominations , but we cannot help remembering that they did not obtain it for themselves . They demanded the liberty they then wished , and no more ; indeed , they opposed more , although they acknowledge that theyiiave profited by it now that they have it . The men who stood up for the principle in full were such as Hone , Carlisle , and Holyoake , and their denunciators and persecutors were not all orthodox . Shelle y ' s
children were literally torn from his arms , because he insisted on the principle whose success the Denominational Dissenters now vaunt ; but we do not remember that liberty had in his person any support from the Denominational Dissenters . He got it for them ; they have enjoyed it , and they are bound to aid in extending the great principle to its fullest perfection . They need not be afraid . As vre showed last week , if freedom of discussion has softened the
conflicts of sect , so that we may see the descendants of Laud , Knox , Whitfield , and Wesley signing the same address , it has also disarmed scepticism , and extended the practical sway of religion .
! L 7g The L E A Per. [No. 298, Saturday...
! L 7 g THE L E A PER . [ No . 298 , Saturday ^
Colonel Turr. The Exiles Who Have Relied...
COLONEL TURR . The exiles who have relied upon English courage to protect them against the power of Austria and France , -would do well to take refuge under that flag which sheltered Martin Costa . There is now but one Government — the American—which maintains the right of asylum . Great Britain dares not to maintain it . She has brought upon herself the derision
of Europe by hunting the Proscribed from Jersey ; she now makes atonement to Austria for her contumacy in 1849 , when Turkey was an independent power . Public opinion was then proud of insolent challenges thrown at the feet of an Empire exhausted by civil war . The Austrians were told , at their peril , to drag the Hungarians from Kiutayah . But now , England being in the toils of France , and engaged in a contest with Russia , Austria
establishes martial law in two Ottoman provinces , exasperates the subjects of the Porte by a regime of licentious brutality , and arrests a British servant in the territory of her ally . The seizure of Colonel Turk by the Austrian authorities in Wallachia , and the submission of the British Government to that piratical act , is an event which illustrates our late remarks on the demoralisation of English policy and opinion . Had it occurred in a time of peace , when the public was in a blustering mood ; or in the kingdom of Naples , where an exhibition of courage would be safe ,
Colonel Turr would not have been abandoned to a prison , to fetters , possibly to a secret execution . But the power that insults us , and tramples on the privileges of our weak ally , is Austria —and against Austrian aggressions we are helpless . We take counsel with prudence , and submit when we cannot resist without danger . This may be a wise course ; and , undoubtedly , it avoids a present risk . But the indecency of the transaction , as far as it concerns England , consists in the means adopted to justify the sacrifice of Colonel Turr .
The semi-official papers in London , informed that Government only intends to " represent " the right side of the matter to Austria , without any view to defend the public law of Europe , proceed to " explain" the case . The Austrian authorities , they say , were justified in arresting Colonel Turr , though not in personally maltreating him , on Ottoman territory . He was not strictly in the British service , though he had been employed ; and if he wore a British xiniform , he had forged an appearance . Possibly , had a British general been in the position of General Coronini , he would himself have arrested Colonel Turr .
At the close of this apology the semi-official conscience compromises the point , by reminding Francis Joseph that he is loathed in central and southern Europe , and should be careful not to aggravate that loathing . He is loathed because his Government is based on fraud and terror ; because he extorts allegiance by cruelty ; shoots the suspectedman or woman ; and employs his police to
track the footsteps of every patriot , Hungarian or Italian . But will the English public bear to be told that England , also , is becoming loathsome and despicable abroad ? It was mean to permit Colonel Turr to be arrested within the Ottoman frontier ; mean to exculpate our politic cowardice by a misrepresentation of facts ; but it was doubly , inexpressibly disgraceful , to libel the unhappy , helpless man , and to go to Italy for the scandal .
Wo affect great enthusiasm for Piedmont ; but do Englishmen in general know what is said of them by the Piedmontese ? - —or how far the Government of King Emmanuel is implicated with our own , in acts of ignominious compliance ? The story is humiliating ; but must be told . When the British Cabinet needed an excuse for sacrificing Colonel Turr , it applied to the Piedmontese police—assuming that he bore a tainted character—to know the
particulars of his life . The police of Tunn of courso , belong to the Guild of police , throughout Europe 5 and it was thought proper to defame him . Lord Clarendon was informed , in reply to his questions , " What was the opinion held of Colonel Turr when he lived in Piedmont ?"—" And why was he arrested and expelled ?"—that "he was an Austrian spy . "
This may be true ; what we know , however , is , that not the slightest shadow of proof has been discovered . We will quote from an admirable letter of the Turin correspondent of the Daily News : — " I boliovo I am in a position to give this statement
the most flat and positive denial . I have made the most anxious and careful inquiries , both of people who knew him here , and of people from Lombardy , foreign and native , and I find that all agree not only in disbelief of the statement , but in indignation . The republican and the revolutionary parties in Italy are not famous for confidence in their friends and leaders . They generally err on the side of suspicion . Every act in a man ' s public and private' life is eare ^ fully scrutinised . No one with impunity can commit
an equivocal act , or disappear from the scene for a moment , without giving the clearest possible explanations . The innocent may be blamed ^ but it is impossible that the guilty should escape detectionwhen so many lives and fortunes depend on the truth being known—for any length of time ; to suppose , therefore , that Colonel Turr should have systematically betrayed his party ever since 1849 , or once in 1853 , and yet retain their undiminished confidence , i 8 simply absurd . The accusation is now heard of for the first time , and is invented for the nonce . "
We have grounds for believing that evidence , in refutation of the calumny , has been placed , before the British Government , which is , therefore , without excuse , if it persist in defaming the character of Colonel Turr . We must know upon whose testimony he is accused of embezzling the moneys of his regiment . Until the proofs are forthcoming , we may attribute the charge to that boundless source of slander which placed Pianori among galley-slaves , before it condemned him for his pistol-shot . As if to attempt the death of an Emperor were not a mortal crime , unless committed by an escaped convict !
We know whence come these ignoble charges against Colonel Turr . He is now expiating his attachment to the liberal cause in Italy . He has long been in repute among his countrymen , as an ardent and high-minded patriot—so ardent , that he sacrificed every worldly motive to advance the Italian causeso high-minded , that he was trusted by Constitutionalists no less than by Republicans , with secrets which made their possessor a
dangerous man . Has he ever been accused of betraying those secrets , which others , besides the Austrians , would have bought at any price ? Did he ever correspond with the Austrian Government ? Did he not know , perfectly , and in detail , of the movement that was prepared in February , 1853 , and which was to be executed simultaneously at Milan , Bologna , Verona , and "Venice ? — and was not Austria kept profoundly ignorant of the scheme ?
Colonel Tuiurwas arrested , early in 1 , 851 , by the Sardinian authorities , and within the Sardinian territories . Their accusation against him then was , that he had fomented an insurrection in the Austrian provinces , and disturbed the frontier . Now , the Piedmontese police declare that he was seized as an Austrian spy . But why not punished as a spy ? Instead of that , he was released , warned against acts of provocation to Austria , supplied with money , sent to Malta to take service in the British army He imagined the character of a British agent would be his safeguard—a confidence , probably , that will cost him his life .
We are sorry for the part the Piedmontese authorities have taken in this matter . It lowers them in the sight of Europe . It exhibits the working of an Austrian influence in the capital—it deepens the disgrace incurred some time ago , when Croats and Germans were conciliated by an act of treachery at Turin . Such is the attitude to which
Piedmont , in spite of its constitutionalism , forced by the presence of a great despotism in Italy . But its free press , at least , repudiates the policy of abasement . The worst point ot the chso is , that we read in tho Piedmontese journals , taunts directed against our countrymen , and we cannot repel them . They say that England is at the feet of Imperial France ; that public opinion in England is insincere
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 8, 1855, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08121855/page/12/
-