35. & 36. Letters from Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 26 April and 12 October 1821

You know by this time with all Europe – the precious treachery and desertion of the Neapolitans. I was taken in like many others by their demonstrations – & have probably been more ashamed of them than they are of themselves. – I can write nothing by the post – but if ever we meet I will tell you a thing or two – of no great importance – perhaps – but which will serve you to laugh at. – I can’t laugh yet – the thing is a little too serious; – if the Scoundrels had only compromised themselves – it would matter little – but they were busy every where – and all for this! The rest of the Italians execrate them as you will do, & all honest men of all nations. – – Poland and Ireland were Sparta and Spartacus compared to these villains. – But there is no room to be sufficiently bilious – nor bile enough to spit upon them – –

… Pray write when it suits you, I did not write because there was nothing to say – that could be said – without being pried into in this country of tyrants and Spies and foreign barbarians, let loose upon it again.

I see nothing left for it – but a republic now – an opinion which I have held aloof as long as it would let me. – Come it must – they do not see this – – but all this driving will do it – it may not be in ten or twenty years but it is inevitable – and I am sorry for it. – When we read of the beginnings of revolutions in a few pages – it seems as if they had happened in five minutes – whereas years have always been and must be their prologues – – it took from eighty eight to ninety three – to decide the French one – and the English are a tardy people. – – I am so persuaded that all English one is inevitable – that I am moving Heaven and earth – – (that is to say Douglas Kinnaird – and Medea’s trustee) to get me out of the funds. – – I would give all I have to see the Country fairly free – but till I know that giving – or rather losing it – would free it – you will excuse my natural anxiety for my temporal affairs. – –

Still I can’t approve of the ways of the radicals – they seem such very low imitations of the Jacobins. – – I do not allude to you and Burdett – but to the Major and to Hunt of Bristol & little Waddington &c. &c. – If I came home (which I never shall) I should take a decided part in politics – with pen and person – & (if I could revive my English) in the house – but am not yet quite sure what part – except that it would not be in favour of these abominable tyrants. – – – I certainly lean towards a republic – all history – and experience is in it’s favour even the French – for though they butchered thousands of Citizens at first, yet more were killed in any one of the great battles than ever perished by a democratical proscription. – – – – America is a Model of force and freedom & moderation – with all the coarseness and rudeness of it’s people. – I have been thinking over what you say of Italian tragedy – but have been rather surprized to find that I know very little about it – and I have so little turn for that kind of disquisition that I should only spoil your sager lucubrations. – I believe I said as much in a former letter. – You will make a better thing of it without me.