Page 162 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

160 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

dition what was said of the crusades: God wants it! God wants it! And in fact
that was a great, sublime crusade.

May 5 th - In Genoa, Bixio with some thirty men organised a mock
seizure of two steamships, feigning some violence; the Piemonte, towing the
Lombardo, steamed off to Quarto in the middle of the night. The previous
evening, the volunteers had gathered in Villa Spinola, and had left Genoa in
small groups. Garibaldi went down to the beach around midnight, dressed
with a read shirt, his American poncho, his usual round hat, his sabre on his
shoulders, his revolver and dagger at his belt.
Before leaving, he addressed a letter to the Rubattino Company, to exon-
erate Fauché, and to Victor Emmanuel, in which he said, among other things:
«I did not express my thought to Your Majesty because I was afraid, for the
respect I have for You, that Your Majesty could persuade me to put it aside».
He addressed other statements to the Italian army, exhorting the soldiers
«in the name of our resurging Country» not to leave their ranks, and the
Neapolitan army to take sides with the soldiers of Varese and S. Martino to
fight together against Italy’s enemies. Finally, he addressed other statements
to the Italians, so that they could support the Sicilian uprising. «In the name
of God! Do not listen to the voice of cowards who feast gluttonously at lav-
ish tables. Let us take weapons and think of our (Sicilian) brothers, tomor-
row we will mind our business»
On board of the two steamboats, there were the rifles provided by La
Farina, but no ammunitions. These had to be brought by other volunteers
who had to wait offshore for the two steamboats and then board them; but
the person who had to guide them abandoned them in the middle of the
night, perhaps to smuggle some bales of silk, and therefore the barges with
the ammunitions could not reach the steamboats of the expedition.
«One thousand rifles and no ammunition!» Bixio had to say to Garibaldi
when the latter called him to report on the situation. «Let’s go on all the
same!» answered the commander.

May 6 th – After a long wait on some boats, in the greyish light of the early
morning, the two steamboats appeared and the boarding started immediate-
ly, terminating at about 6.30am. Garibaldi boarded the Piemonte, whose pilot
was the Sicilian Salvatore Castiglia; Bixio commanded the Lombardo, a more
capable ship, but a slower one, and therefore preceding the other.