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It
is even reported that at Fenestrelle glasses were
removed from windows to make these people suffer even
more from cold and convince them to join the new army,
but they did not give up.
At the end of October 1861, only in the concentration
camp of S. Maurizio nearby Turin there were 12.447
former Bourbon soldiers and according to La
Civiltà Cattolica other 12,000 soldiers
were imprisoned in other prisons. On 30 June 1861,
52,000 men failed to report for military service  .
Even Great Britain started to worry about that. The
British consul in Naples - who had always taken side
with the Risorgimento - Bonham, said that in the Neapolitan
prisons there were at least 20,000 prisoners (but
others gave the figure of 80,000), kept there in dreadful
barbaric conditions, in the filth and hunger, and
many people had to wait years for a trial: a parliamentary
discussion was held in London, Lord Seymour and Sir
Winston Barron were sent to verify the truth of these
statements and they confirmed all reports made to
the British Parliament .
Under the Rattazzi government, the minister of foreign
affairs, Giacomo Durando, started negotiations with
Portugal to establish convict prisons in Asian colonies
and in Mozambique, under the pretext of starting a
national colonisation process; but it came to nothing
because France opposed it .
The same protagonists of the Risorgimento, from Mazzini
to Ferrari, from Settembrini to d’Azeglio, strongly
condemned what was happening: they expressed very
severe opinions against the repressive policy adopted
in the south of Italy.
Just to give you an example, we report the opinion
of a man who cannot certainly be defined as a friend
of the Bourbon. Napoleon III wrote General Fleury:
«I remonstrated in writing
with Turin; the details I came to know are such as
to think they will alienate all honest people from
the Italian cause [then he related some events he
came to know, such as the execution for those found
with "too much" bread with them and concluded]
the Bourbon have never done anything similar. Napoleon».
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