Volume 2

Wonderful characters : comprising memoirs and anecdotes of the most remarkable persons of every age and nation. / collected from the most authentic sources by Henry Wilson.

  • Wilson, H. (Henry), 1864-1934.
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Wonderful characters : comprising memoirs and anecdotes of the most remarkable persons of every age and nation. / collected from the most authentic sources by Henry Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    79/520 (page 69)
    60 Just at the very time when the market-place, as well as the church and convent of Carmine, were crowded with an infinite number of people, who all waited w.th impatience to learn the success of the pending negoci- atiou ; about five hundred banditti, well armed and mounted, came into the market-place, where they were received with demonstrations of joy, upon their giving out, that they had been sent for by Dominico Perrone, (the person mentioned before as the third in command,) and were come for the service of the most faithful people f which was the denomination the rabble gave themselves. As soon as Masaniello saw the new comers, he thanked them for their good will, and, telling them to alight, appointed them different quarters of the city, where they should expect his further orders, on foot: upon whicb Perrone, who was by, told him, that he judged it much more proper to assign them a separate station to themselves, and by no means to dismount them, because, being on horseback, they would be much readier to as- sist him in case of any urgent necessity. To this Masaniello replied, that it was altogether unnecessary for them to continue as a separate body, and that they would be as serviceable to him on foot as on horseback. But Perrone, warmly insisting upon their going mounted, and in a body, and that without being able to give any good reason for it, Masaniello began to suspect that some dark business was going forward, and therefore peremptorily commanded the banditti to go on foot to the quarter he assigned them, and not to stir from thence without his orders. He had no sooner spoke than a musket was fired off, which Masaniello considering as the signal of some mischief, cried out, Treason! Treason! there is a plot on foot! and immediately five muskets were discharg- ed at him by some of the banditti, who had found means to mix themselves among the crowd thatsurround-