Note 41 — MAIDA.

Manhes, steadfast in his purpose, and closing his ears to pity, became, by the severity of his measures and the novelty of his punishments, the terror of the Calabrese. He was never known to relax from love of gain; and it is but just towards his character to state, that individual interests were never considered in his proscriptions. Faithful to the views of Murat, he accomplished by persevering activity in less than six months what others had only begun in six years.

Manhes, after having ascertained, commune by commune, the number of wandering brigands, suspended all labour throughout the country. The workmen and their cattle were collected in the villages under protection of the regular troops, and the punishment of death was decreed against any individual found in the country with provisions, unless belonging to the armed columns.

The principal possessors of property received orders to arm and march against the brigands, and were made answerable, number for number, and head for head, not to return to their homes without bringing with them, dead or alive, the brigands of their respective communes.

Pursued by famine and the bayonets of their enemies, the greater number of the fugitives sold their lives dearly. The remainder of these unfortunate creatures, reduced to the last extremity, preferred a certain but immediate death, to the sharp and protracted sufferings of fear and famine. A prodigious number of them were shot. The heads and limbs of the condemned were, after their execution, fixed on pikes, and the road from Reggio to Naples was garnished with these disgusting trophies.

The river Crati, upon the banks of which a crowd of these victims was executed, and which is very shallow at Cozenza, presented for a long time the disgusting spectacle of their mutilated bodies.

The following anecdotes show the determined spirit that animated the leaders of the band.

“Parafanti could not be secured till dead with a hundred wounds. Perched on the ledge of a rock, which afforded him a certain degree of protection, his thighs fractured but his arms free, he sacrificed many to his vengeance. Not one of his discharges failed of effect. His head was exposed at Rogliano, his birth-place.

“Another, who had taken refuge in a mill, set it on fire himself, with his last cartridge, to prevent his being taken alive.

“Nierello was assassinated on the road of Nicastro by one of the civic guard, who pretended to surrender himself to him.

“Paonese, the terror of the environs of Gasparena and of Montanio, fell a sacrifice to the columns of Manhes—and Masotta, Mescio, Giacinto, and Antonio, with many others, shared the same fate.

“Murat was not, like his predecessor, lavish of amnesties; nevertheless, he authorized some; and it was observed that the brigand chiefs who took advantage of them became the most formidable and bitter persecutors of those in whose dangers and whose crimes they had participated.

“Benincasa, chief of the band of St. Braggio, fleeing with four companions from a French detachment, was stopped by the swelling of the river Angitola; they tried to effect their passage on a bullock-car, which, however, was stopped in the middle of the current. To a summons to surrender, they only returned discharges of their muskets. At last, after a long and desperate resistance, being all wounded, and having expended their ammunition, they mutually assisted each other in falling into the river, where their mangled bodies were afterwards found.

“A brigand chief, of the band of Foggia, was condemned to have his wrist severed. The executioner having failed in the first blow, the sufferer begged to be permitted to do it himself. He coolly cut off his hand at one blow, and turning to the executioner, said, ‘Endeavour to learn your trade better.’”—Memoir of Stuart’s Campaign in Calabria.