Garibaldi

Garibaldi, Giuseppe (1807-1882), one of the apostles and active instruments of Italian freedom, was born at Nice. He became a sailor, and in his twenty-first year was in command of a merchant brig. At Marseilles he met Mazzini, who fired him with his own enthusiasm, and induced him to join the abortive Genoese revolution of 1833. For his share in this, Garibaldi was condemned to death, but escaped to Brazil, where he joined the revolutionists in Rio Grande, and did much service as a guerilla leader and privateer. He was made prisoner, and (being separated from his unfaithful wife) became associated with a devoted Creole, Anita, who till her death was the faithful companion of his wanderings. He aided, in 1842, the Montevideans against the Dictator of Buenos Ayres. The advent of Pius IX., with all its hopes, in 1847, found him in Italy, but he was coolly received by the Pope, and by Charles Albert of Sardinia. He fought against the Austrians, however, in S. Tyrol, and in 1849 joined the revolutionary government at Rome, and drove out the French and Neapolitans, but he defended it in vain against a siege, and was pursued to the Adriatic, Anita dying in the flight. Being banished, he went to New York, worked in a soap factory on Staten Island, and took to the sea again. In 1854 he returned to Italy, and farmed on the isle of Caprera. In 1859 he was summoned by Cavour to Turin, and had a great part assigned to him in the War of Liberation. He was the heart and soul of the expedition against the Neapolitan kingdom, which put Victor Emanuel on the Italian throne, but the renunciation of Rome and the cession of Savoy and Nice disgusted him, and he retired to Caprera. In 1862 he undertook an expedition against Rome, but was checked by the Italian troops at the battle of Aspromonte, where he was badly wounded in the foot. Soon after this he visited England, but though received with much popular appleruse, he failed in the object of the visit - to get England to take up the cause of Denmark against Prussia. In 1868 he made his ill-advised attempt upon Rome, and was defeated at Mentana by French troops. The rest of his life was passed in comparative retirement, save when in 1870 he hastened to put his sword and life at the disposal of the French republic, and commanded the irregular forces of the Vosges. He was elected deputy to the French National Assembly in 1871, but was refused admission as being a foreigner. For the latter part of his life Garibaldi possessed the isle of Caprera.