Gozzi had to choose between the _piombi_ or the sacrifice of his already finished manuscripts. Of course he did not hesitate. Both Confutation and Memoirs were thrown at once aside; and they might even now have been lying in some neglected corner of his ancient mansion had it not been for the events which have to be related.
Gratarol never returned to Venice. From Sweden he passed to England, where he was hospitably received and befriended by members of our aristocracy. Failing, however, to get any appointment in London, he crossed to North America, travelled southwards to Brazil, and again left that country in the train of some political adventurers. The party were betrayed and robbed by the captain of their vessel, and cast ashore upon the coast of Madagascar. Here Gratarol perished miserably in October 1785. His English friends sent information of this event to the Venetian Government; but the evidence was judged insufficient, and the restitution of his estates to two female cousins, who were his only heirs, was refused until the fall of the Republic. When that took place, Gratarol's friends immediately republished the _Narrazione Apologetica_ at Venice, and appealed to General Bonaparte for justice. This was in 1797.
Gozzi, who had now nothing to fear from Inquisitors of State, and whose reputation was again exposed to calumny, took his manuscripts from their drawer, dusted them, and placed them in the hands of a publisher. In the month of July 1797 he issued a manifesto to the Venetian public, proclaiming his intention.[12] "Availing myself of the beneficent freedom now permitted to the press, I have drawn my manuscript from the tomb in which it has lain during the past seventeen years." He refers to the recent republication of Gratarol's _Narrazione_, and declares that this alone has forced him to resuscitate the memory of bygone quarrels and offences. At the same time he pays a high tribute to Gratarol's work. "This book, which appeared at Stockholm in 1779, and which I had forgotten, without however forgetting the unjust tricks and jobs by which its truly pitiable author was overwhelmed with ruin, contains a great number of indubitable truths, and it is only to be regretted that he dictated it under the influence of blind anger and venomous resentment, instead of philosophic calm."