Honour to Garibaldi! Win or lose, A Hero to all time that Chief goes down, Whatever issue his emprise ensues, He, certain of unquenchable renown, Fights for a victor's or a martyr's crown.
The flight of "Bombalino"--Francis IV, son of "Bomba," King of Naples--is celebrated in a pæan on Garibaldi, the Irish Papal Volunteers are ironically praised for their valour in "The Wake of the Irish Brigade," and a cartoon "The Right Leg in the Boot at Last" shows Garibaldi helping Victor Emmanuel to put his leg into the boot of Italy, with the comment, "If it won't go on, Sire, try a little more powder." _Punch_, we may add, condoled with Garibaldi on the report that Dumas was to write his life, and recorded the description of him given by a young English lady as "a dear old weather-beaten angel."
Savoy and Nice had been annexed to France, and Louis Napoleon's letter to the Comte de Persigny, the French Ambassador in London, disclaiming any aggressive intentions, revived _Punch's_ distrust. The cartoon of August 11, 1860, represents the Emperor as a wolf in sheep's clothing--with the heads of two little dead lambs, labelled Savoy and Nice, peeping out--in the act of posting a letter to Mme. Britannia, "care of M. le Comte de Persigny." But already the eyes of Europe were beginning to be drawn across the Atlantic. The protest of South Carolina is dealt with mainly in a light-hearted spirit, but with an ominous anticipation of the sequel. The verses on "The Beginning of Slavery's End" are wholly serious and entirely on the side of the North:--
This is America's decision. Awakening, she begins to see How justly she incurs derision Of tyrants, while she shames us free; Republican, yet more slaves owning Than any under Empire groaning, Or ground beneath the Papacy.
Lincoln had been elected President, and apart from references to his achievements as a rail-splitter, and the facetious suggestion that the White House should be renamed "Lincoln's Inn," he is welcomed as an honest man and with a respect which, all too soon, was replaced by the spiteful calumny which did not cease until the tragedy of his untimely end. The outbreak of civil war in the United States was immediately followed by the proclamation of Britain's neutrality. _Punch's_ misinterpretation of the issues involved and his misreading of the attitude of the cotton spinners of Lancashire is dealt with in another section. The comments on Bull's Run and the burlesque correspondence from Charleston are lamentably lacking in good feeling, and the report that the Duc de Chartres and the Comte de Paris had joined the army of the North only furnished _Punch_ with materials for disparaging the French Princes and the cause they had espoused. The famous affair of the _Trent_, involving the seizure of two Southern envoys on a British ship, which brought England to the verge of war, is treated seriously, but with a profound conviction of the justice of our claim. In the cartoon, "Waiting for an Answer," Britannia is shown standing at the breech of a great gun:--