ABSTRACT
The chief minister of the new king of Naples was the marchese Tanucci. a He was a man of great talents, and of a mind in a high degree liberal and enlightened. He was the person who set on foot the unrolling of the manuscripts at Herculaneum on a magnificent scale. The ruins of this city had been first discovered in 1713; but the discovery excited little attention till more than twenty years after. He conducted with great ability the project for relieving the kingdom of Naples from the usurpations of the papal see, and, among other things, abolished the degrading tribute of an ambling nag and a hundred dollars, annually paid by the former / to the latter as a token of subjection. One of the projects he had most at heart was that of establishing a complete security in private life, so that neither the traveller on the road, nor the cottage of the meanest peasant, should be liable to attack from the free-booter. Too long had this licentiousness been the dishonour of the beautiful regions of Italy; and Tanucci resolved to effect its extirpation. For this purpose he held it necessary to afford some examples of an unsparing severity. – These circumstances I did not fully consider till afterwards.
