Select Speeches of Kossuth Part 31

Appendix I.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Daily News,' dated January 17th, 1852_, by Sabbas Vucovics, _late Minister of Justice in Hungary, in answer to_ Count Casimir Bathyanyi.

So early as the commencement of the Serbian insurrection, the popular suspicion gained ground that the insurrection had been stirred up by the secret intrigues of the court, and confidence in the truth and good faith of the King disappeared accordingly. The nation, however, still indulged the hope that a weak King, though betrayed into ambiguous proceeding, would not permit himself to be carried away into a flagrant breach of the const.i.tution. This was the time when the King, in the opinion of the people, was kept distinct from the Camarilla. But when the Austrian ministry openly attempted to deprive Hungary of its ministries of war and finance, when the base game of the degradation and restoration of Jellachich was played, and when the Hungarian army, fighting in the name of the King against the insurrections of the Serbians and Croats, became aware that the b.a.l.l.s of that same King thinned their ranks from the hostile camp, the nation arrived at the universal conviction that the Hapsburg dynasty were only pursuing their old absolute tendencies, and that they wanted to force Hungary into self-defence, in order, under the pretext of rebellion, to deprive it of all its const.i.tutional rights and guarantees. It needs no proof that a loud indignation, and even hatred of the dynasty, spread far and wide in the country, in consequence of these intrigues and proceedings. In spite of this natural excitement, and of the war itself, carried on by the nation with an increasing enthusiasm of hatred of the House of Austria, no party in the country urged a declaration of _decheance_ or forfeiture against the dynasty. Even all the faithless acts recorded in the letter of Count Casimir Bathyanyi, and the cruelties committed in the name of that court in Lower Hungary and Transylvania, did not turn the scales in this direction. The Pragmatic Sanction was still considered as good in law; and the many precedents of our history, when the nation and its kings went to war with each other, and ultimately settled their disputes by solemn pacts confirming the const.i.tution of the land, conveyed the notion that a reconciliation was even then not impossible.

Without these precedents and reminiscences of history, and only guided by the universal feeling of the country against the dynasty, the Hungarian parliament would have p.r.o.nounced the forfeiture of the House of Austria so far back as October, 1848, when Jellachich was appointed absolute plenipotentiary of the King in Hungary, with discretionary power of life and death; or in December, 1848, when in Olmutz the succession of the Hungarian throne was changed and determined, without the concurrence of the nation through the Diet. To force the nation and its parliament to the last step in this momentous crisis, the court itself broke the dynastic tie.

This was done by the imposition of the const.i.tution of the 4th of March, 1849, by which the House of Austria itself annihilated the Pragmatic Sanction, treating free and independent Hungary with the arrogance of a conqueror. The nation, more irritated by this act than by any preceding event, saw that the hour was come, beyond which further to defer the dethronement of the dynasty would be alike incompatible with the laws and the honour of Hungary. _All the channels of public opinion, the public press, the popular meetings, and even the head quarters of the army, resounded with emphatic declarations of the impossibility of reconciliation with the dynasty. The garrison of Komorn_--the most important fortress of the country--_pet.i.tioned the government for the declaration of forfeiture_. Most a.s.suredly no party manoeuvres were wanted in this universal excitement, caused by the const.i.tution of the 4th of March, to carry a parliamentary resolution of forfeiture.

When the proposition of forfeiture was made on the 14th of April, 1849, in the House of Representatives, only eight members voted against it, in a house never attended by less than from 220 to 240 members. The House of Magnates adopted this resolution without opposition. The press of all shades of opinion, though enjoying the most unlimited freedom, also declared for the resolution of the Diet. It was moreover received throughout the whole country with patriotic a.s.sent and determination. If there was a party opposed to the forfeiture, how came it that it did not hold it to be a duty to declare its opposition in the Diet or through the press?

When the intelligence of the unfortunate battle of Temeswar reached the Governor Kossuth, who was then in the fortress of Arad, he immediately summoned a council of the ministry to deliberate on measures of public safety still possible. At this council, in which all the ministers took part, it was resolved to invest Gorgei, who stood alone at the head of an unconquered army, with full powers for negotiating a peace. It was, moreover, resolved to dissolve the government, which could not be carried on in any fixed place of safety under the existing circ.u.mstances. We did not, however, insert in the instrument investing Gorgei with full power (and despatched to him immediately) the abdication of the government. On the same day--it was the 11th of August, 1849--Gorgei declared in the presence of some of the ministers who had a.s.sembled at Csanyi's (who was one of them), that he could not accept the commission because the resignation of the government was not contained in it, while he was sure that the enemy would enter into no negotiations with him, so long as Kossuth and his ministry were thought to be behind him. The ministers who were present, after a short deliberation, considering it to be their duty not to stand in the way of the negotiation which had been resolved on as necessary, accordingly sent their resignation to the governor, _whom they requested to resign as well_. The governor soon after sent his abdication for countersignature by these members of the ministry, and accordingly the government formally dissolved itself, after having done so _de facto_ in the previous council of ministers. I must mention the circ.u.mstance that _in the governor's instrument of abdication conditions were proscribed to Gorgei, which were not inserted in the original instrument of authorization, issued by the full council_.

These conditions were, the preservation of the nationality and the autonomy of Hungary. Four ministers took part in this resignation of the governor, as above stated, Aulich, Csanyi, Horvath, and I. Two of the ministers, Szemere and [Casimir] Bathyanyi, were absent when the formal declaration of the abdication was discussed at Csanyi's residence. I have not mentioned among the ministers our late colleague, the finance minister Dushek, because his treachery, which was afterwards brought to light, excludes him from our ranks. From all these circ.u.mstances, it will be manifest how unjust the reproaches of Count Casimir Bathyanyi are, that no new cabinet council was held.

It is notorious that Gorgei abused the full powers with which he was entrusted, instead of procuring the preservation of Hungary by a negotiation for peace, by an ignominious treachery to his native country. From that very moment the power conferred on him by the above-mentioned instrument, and the conditional abdication of the government, consequently and legally reverted to him who had invested him with it. To deny this, would be to recognize in the foreign rule which crushed Hungary, in consequence of that treachery, legitimate right and lawful power.

I, however, perfectly agree with the n.o.ble count, that the nation, once more restored to its const.i.tutional existence, and free from foreign yoke, will have the unlimited right to dispose of all the affairs of the country, and consequently of the executive power. To a.s.sert a contrary opinion would be a crime against the nation. Not over a liberated nation (which, of course, would have the right to choose whom it will), but over a nation crushed by an usurping power, the claims of Kossuth, as elected Governor of Hungary, are, I submit, lawful.

Republican principles have not been proclaimed at Kossuth's dictation as the aim of our national exertions. They were, during our struggle, the well-ascertained and deep-rooted sentiment of the country, and Kossuth could only faithfully represent the proclaimed will and feeling of the nation, by inscribing them on his banner. Immediately after the declaration of independence, all the manifestations of the national will were unanimous in the desire for a republic. The ministry, which was nominated by the Governor as a consequence of that legislative act, declared in both houses of the Diet, that its efforts would be directed to the establishment of a republic. Both houses joined in this declaration, and in the government no opposition whatever was manifested against it. One of the first acts of the new government was to remove the crown from all national scutcheons, and from the great seal of Hungary. The press in all its shades developed republican principles.

The new semi-official paper bore the name of _The Republic_. It is true that the government was only provisional, for the war continued, and the definite decision of this question depended on unforeseen circ.u.mstances. We should have preferred almost any settlement to the necessity of a subjection to the Austrian dynasty; and at the price of emanc.i.p.ation from that detested power, the nation would even have been prepared, for the sake of aid, to choose a king from another race; but certainly if it had been the unaided victor in the struggle, never.

Monarchical government would have been for us the resort of expediency.

The government of our wishes and principles was "The Republic."

I do not feel at all convinced, as the n.o.ble count a.s.serts, that the inst.i.tutions and habits of Hungary are incompatible with a democratic republic. I find, on the contrary, traits in them which lead me to an opposite conclusion. The aggregate character of the numerous n.o.bility which resigned its privileges in the Diet of 1847-48 of its own accord, and which was in its nature more a democratic than an aristocratic body, because neither territorial wealth nor rank interfered with or disturbed the equality of its rights,--the national antipathy to the system of an upper house, which was considered as a foreign inst.i.tution, because it had been introduced under the Austrian dynasty,--the immemorial custom of periodically electing all officials, and even the judges,--the detestation in which bureaucracy and all the instruments of centralization were held in all ages, while the attachment to the munic.i.p.al self-government was ineradicable,--the fact that, in consequence of the laws which had been sanctioned in April, 1848, the county authorities, formerly only elected from the "n.o.bility," were democratically reconst.i.tuted, and exercised their functions in this form till the catastrophe of Vilagos, without the slightest collision between the different cla.s.ses of society,--the peaceful election of the representatives of the last Diet conducted almost on the principle of universal suffrage,--all these facts unmistakeably prove that the germ of democracy lay in our inst.i.tutions, and that these could receive a democratic development without any concussion. Those characteristic _traits_ of our nation, which have been so often misrepresented as signs of an aversion to a republic, and which may be more properly called civic virtues; as, for example, our respect for law, our antipathy to untried political theories, our attachment to traditional customs, and our pride in the history of our country, are no obstacles to, but rather guarantees, and even conditions of a republic, which is to be national and enduring. It would indeed be an unprecedented event in history, if staunch royalism could be the characteristic of a country which, like Hungary, has found in its kings for three hundred years the inexorable foes of its liberties, and which in that time, for its defence, had to wage six b.l.o.o.d.y wars against the dynasty.

As to the criticisms by the n.o.ble count of the personal character of Kossuth, I take leave to a.s.sert that a great majority of the Hungarian nation do not share his opinion. It is not my task to appear as a personal advocate, and I wish, therefore, to advert only to one point of his attack, which may seem to be based on facts. The n.o.ble count a.s.serts that Kossuth has attained to power _by doubtful means_. I am amazed at this a.s.sertion, knowing, as I do, that Kossuth was proposed by Count Louis Bathyanyi, and nominated by the King, with the universal applause of the nation, to the Ministry of Finance. After the resignation of the first Hungarian ministry, he was freely and unanimously elected by the Diet to the Presidency of the Committee of Defence, and after the declared forfeiture of the dynasty to the Governors.h.i.+p of the country. I know no more honourable means by which a man can be raised to power.

S. VUKOVICS,

Late Minister of Justice of Hungary.

_London, January 17, 1852_.

Appendix II.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Times,' dated December 9th, 1851, by_ Bartholomew Szemere, _late Minister of the Interior in Hungary; in answer to_ Prince Esterhazy.

I shall now proceed to give a succinct account of what took place from April 14, when the new acts received the Royal sanction, to December, 1848. You may be a.s.sured that I shall conceal nothing that tended to change the relations between Hungary and Austria.

The Prime Minister was already nominated when Jellachich was raised to the dignity of Ban of Croatia by a Royal decree which the Premier was not even asked to countersign. The Hungarian ministers, nevertheless, for the sake of peace, overlooked this irregular proceeding.

By a decree, dated June 10, 1848, the King made known to all whom it might concern, that all the troops stationed within the kingdom of Hungary, whether Hungarians or Austrians, were placed under the orders of the Hungarian Minister of War, and that all the Hungarian fortresses were under the jurisdiction of the said Minister. Yet at this very time officers of the Imperial and Royal army were taking an active part in the rebellion of the Serbs and Valachs, while General Mayerhofer was enlisting recruits in the princ.i.p.ality of Servia, and sending them to a.s.sist the rebels. The people thus beheld with astonishment civil war break out, and saw with still greater astonishment that Imperial officers were fighting on both sides.

Jellachich, as a functionary of the Hungarian Crown, refused to obey the Hungarian ministry, and illegally summoned a Croatian Diet to meet at Agram on June 5. In consequence of these proceedings, Ferdinand V., by a decree dated June 10, 1848, deprived him, as a rebel, of all his civil and military offices and dignities, but at the same time sent him, through his Minister of War, Latour, field officers, artillery and ammunition.

The troubles increased daily. The Hungarian ministry requested the Archduke John to act us mediator. He accepted the office, but did nothing.

The Diet met on July 2. The Palatine, as the representative of the Sovereign in the speech from the Throne, said that, as several districts were in a state of open rebellion, the princ.i.p.al objects to which, in the name of His Majesty, he should direct the attention of the Diet were the finances and the defences of the country, and that bills relating to these objects would be brought in by the Ministers. He then proceeded as follows:--"His Majesty has learned with painful feelings, that although he only followed the dictates of his own gracious inclination, when, at the request of the faithful Hungarian people, he gave his sovereign sanction to the laws enacted by the last Diet--laws which the common weal, according to the exigencies of the present age, rendered imperatively necessary--there are, nevertheless, a number of seditious agitators, especially in the annexed territories and the Hungarian districts of the Lower Danube, who, by false reports and terrorism, have excited the different religious sects and races speaking different languages against each other, and, by mendaciously affirming that the above-mentioned laws are not the free expressions of His Majesty's Royal will, have stirred up the people to offer an armed opposition to the execution of the law, and to the legally const.i.tuted authorities. And, moreover, that some of these agitators have even proceeded so far in their iniquitous course as to spread the report that this armed opposition has been made in the interests of the dynasty, and with the knowledge, and connivance of His Majesty or of the members of His Majesty's Royal house. I therefore, in order that all the inhabitants of the kingdom, without distinction as to creed or language, may have their minds set at rest, hereby declare, in conformity with the sovereign behest of His Majesty our most gracious King, and in his sovereign name and person, that it is His Majesty's firm and steadfast determination to defend with all his Royal power and authority the unity and integrity of His Royal Hungarian crown against every attack from without, and every attempt at disruption and separation that may be made within the kingdom, and at the same time inviolably to maintain the laws which have received the Royal sanction. And while His Majesty will not suffer any one to curtail the liberties a.s.sured to all cla.s.ses by the law, His Majesty, as well as all the members of His Royal dynasty, strongly condemns the audacity of those who venture to affirm that any illegal act whatsoever or any disrespect of the const.i.tuted authorities can be reconcileable with His Majesty's sovereign will, or at all compatible with the interests of the Royal dynasty."

It thus clearly appears that the King acknowledged the validity and the inviolability of the acts pa.s.sed by the Diet of 1847-8 three months after they had been sanctioned.

Relying on the sincerity of the Royal a.s.severations, the Diet humbly requested that His Majesty would be graciously pleased to render the country happy by his presence. It was, in fact, the general wish that the King should come to Hungary; even the most radical journals loudly declared that if he came he would be received with enthusiasm bordering on madness.

Meanwhile the rebellion of the Croats, Serbs, and Valachs, was spreading daily, and that, too, _in the name of the Sovereign_. Generals, colonels, and other field officers of the Imperial army were at the head of it, without any one of them being summoned by the King to answer for his conduct. The eyes of the too credulous natives were now opened, and still more when the King refused to sanction the acts for the levying of troops and raising of funds for the suppression of the rebellion, although the Diet had been convened chiefly for this purpose.

I must here observe that at this period nothing whatever had occurred that could serve as a pretext for the dynasty to support the rebellion.

The Diet, it is true, would not consent that the troops that were to be levied should be draughted into the old regiments; but it was obviously impossible for the Diet to consent to any such measures at a period when the rebels were everywhere led by Imperial officers, when the Austrian troops stationed in Hungary, although they had been placed under the orders of the Hungarian Ministry, refused to fight against those rebels, and the commanders of fortresses to receive orders from the Hungarian War-office.

On the 8th of September a deputation from the Hungarian Diet earnestly entreated His Majesty to sanction two acts relating to the levying of troops and taxes. The King refused; but in his answer to the address of the deputation said, "I trust that no one will hereby suppose that I have the intention to set aside or infringe the existing laws. This, I repeat, is far from my intention. On the contrary, it is my firm and determined will to maintain, in conformity with my coronation oath, the laws, the integrity, and the rights of the kingdom, under my Hungarian crown."

The King made this solemn declaration on the 8th of September, and on the 9th of September Jellachich crossed the Drave with 48,000 men to wage war in the King's name on the Hungarian Diet and Ministry. The King had, moreover, on _the 4th of September_, affixed his sign manual to a letter or Royal mandate addressed to Jellachich, and revoking the decree by which he had been deprived of his civil and military offices and dignities. His Majesty, in this letter, also expressed his high approbation of the Ban's conduct. By a Royal decree, dated October 3, the const.i.tution was suspended, martial law proclaimed, and Jellachich, the rebel, appointed His Majesty's Plenipotentiary Commissary for the kingdom of Hungary, and invested with unlimited authority to act, in the name of His Majesty, within the said kingdom.

Hungary, so far from commencing the revolution, was not even prepared to meet the invasion of the Croatian Ban. He was defeated near Stuhlweissenburg by the Landsturm. The Hungarian Government only began to organize regular troops in October.

That the Diet did not recognize a decree that suspended the const.i.tution and invested Jellachich with the dictators.h.i.+p, will be found quite natural, if not by you, at least by every Englishman who cherishes const.i.tutional freedom, the more so as its proceedings on this occasion were founded on legal right, viz., on act 4, sect. 6, of 1847-8, which expressly ordains that "the annual session of the Diet shall not be closed, nor the Diet itself dissolved, before the budget for the ensuing year has been voted."

From this short but faithful account of what actually occurred, it clearly appears that the Hungarian nation had not recourse to arms until the Ban of Croatia entered the Hungarian territory with an Austrian-Croatian army. It is also an undeniable fact that until the promulgation of the Austrian Charter in March, 1849--by which, with a stroke of the pen, the independence of Hungary was destroyed, its const.i.tution abolished, and its territories dismembered--the Hungarian nation never demanded anything else than the maintenance of the laws and inst.i.tutions which its Sovereign had sanctioned and sworn to maintain inviolate. It was however precisely for the purpose of destroying these laws and inst.i.tutions that the dynasty began the war. This, of course, they did not venture to avow. It was necessary to conceal the real motives of their perfidious conduct from the civilized world. Hence in their public proclamations they always alleged some pretext or other--all of them equally groundless. At the commencement they said that it was only an insignificant faction they had to deal with; but when they saw that the whole nation was arrayed in arms against them, they declared it was for the suppression of demagogueism, propagated by foreigners, chiefly Poles, that their armies had entered Hungary; and to give a colour to this pretext they industriously spread the report that there were 20,000 Poles in the ranks of the Hungarians. When however it became notorious that no more than 1,000 Poles were fighting under our national standard, the Austrian dynasty appeared as the _soi-disant_ champion and judge of the various nationalities or races. This answered well enough until the system of centralization showed too clearly that an attempt would be made to Germanize these nationalities; when the dynasty again veered about, and, leaving "nationalities" in the lurch, took up the peasantry. We consequently find the Austrian Government a.s.suring the Was.h.i.+ngton Cabinet (in the note of July 4, 1851) that they had waged war on Hungary in order to crush a turbulent aristocracy that "preach democracy with their tongues, while their whole lives consist in the daily exercise over their fellow-men of arbitrary power in the most repugnant form." This last pretext, so ostentatiously put forth, loses, however, even its plausibility when contrasted with the policy of the dynasty in 1848, for it is an undoubted fact that, although the reforms effected in our _political_ inst.i.tutions at that period were consented to by the dynasty without much hesitation, it required the most energetic remonstrances on the part of the Diet to obtain the Royal sanction to the act for the liberation of the peasants from feudal bondage.

It is precisely to the fact of all cla.s.ses, without distinction, being equally aware of the cabals of the dynasty, that may be ascribed the success of the Hungarian insurrection. It was not _one_ man, nor a party, nor a conspiracy, nor terrorism, that awakened that spontaneous enthusiasm with which the people rushed to arms. Kossuth may have been the rallying cry; but he was not the cause of the war. For several months the people had witnessed the equivocal conduct of the dynasty; had seen that its words were belied by its deeds; had seen that the rebels were everywhere led by Imperial officers; and finally beheld Jellachich, a high functionary of the Hungarian Crown, invade the country at the head of an Austro-Croatian army. It was then, and not till then, that the nation cried, as with one voice--_the King is a traitor_. From that day began the Hungarian revolution. On that day the monarchical feeling was extinguished. What no one had thought it possible to accomplish was accomplished by the dynasty itself.

APPENDIX III.--_Extracts from a Letter to the 'Daily News,' in February, 1852, by a_, "HUNGARIAN EXILE," _in reply to a Letter from_ SZEMERE, _to the 'London Examiner_.'

[I am personally acquainted with the accomplished and intelligent "Exile;" but as he is absent from England, I cannot obtain permission to publish his name.]

It was more than two months after the civil war had been raging in the Banat and Transylvania that the question of giving fresh troops for the suppression of the Italian war was brought before the a.s.sembly at Pesth, July 22, 1846. Now, what are the accusations M. Szemere brings forth against Kossuth in reference to the Italian question? The pith of M.

Szemere's reasoning is, that the ministry agreed, in the protocol of July 5, upon construing the Pragmatic Sanction as binding Hungary to protect the integrity of Austria; "yet that Kossuth, as the organ of the ministry, spoke in a way as if he did not approve of the policy, and sought to make the public believe that the protocol was merely a moral demonstration:" further, that when the opposition denied the obligation of Hungary to defend Austria, the ministry refused to enter into any discussion on an acknowledged principle of const.i.tutional law.

In order to show the utter hollowness of this attack, it may be sufficient to look at the date and circ.u.mstances M. Szemere talks of.

The protocol in question was agreed upon on July 5th, the day when the parliament met to provide for the defence of the country. The members, inexperienced in foreign politics and ignorant of the cabals of courts, although presuming that the civil war was kindled in Vienna, were at first blinded by the royal convocation of the Diet to provide for the safety of the country; putting, moreover, implicit confidence in the sagacity and goodwill of the ministry. When however Kossuth opened the debate on the Italian question, July 22, affairs looked quite different from what they appeared to be when the protocol was drawn up. The treachery of the dynasty broke upon the mind of the most careless, and its connexions with the leaders of the rebellious tribes had become undeniable facts. It was during that short time, from July 5 to July 22, that our national forces met in the Serbian entrenchments of St. Thomas, Foldvar, and Turia, regular Austrian soldiers: Meyerhofe, the Austrian consul at Belgrade, was openly recruiting bands of Servians to reinforce the insurgents; nay, it became even evident that General Bechtold, appointed by His Majesty to lead the faithful Hungarians against the rebellious Serbs, led them on in order to get them the sooner decimated and broken. Some members of the opposition, headed by General Perczel, declaimed loudly against the cowardly and fallacious policy of the ministry, resolving to compel ministers to resign or to induce them to take some more efficacious measures. In short, during this s.p.a.ce of time, the government and people found themselves in quite a new position. Kossuth, in concert with the ministry, moved a levy of 200,000 men (July 11), which motion the a.s.sembly hailed with unparalleled enthusiasm, and which the people witnessed with approval, as affording a guarantee of their liberties. It was in the midst of these moments of excitement and temporary distress that Kossuth, as the most popular member of the cabinet, was pointed out as the person most fitted to undertake the very difficult task of speaking on the Italian question alluded to by M. Szemere. Public opinion, aided by the opposition of the house, was convinced that Austria, after having subjugated the Lombard-Venetians with Hungarian troops, would then turn to Hungary, the enslavement of which might more easily be executed by the country's being bereft of a number of stout arms indispensable to her own defence.

Kossuth therefore, as a man of true liberal principles, while acknowledging the ground to be right upon which the opposition moved, professed in the speech alluded to that he had agreed then with his colleagues in respect to the Italian question, on the ground that the moral power of the protocol would suffice, although as a private individual he could not help rejoicing at the victories of the Italian people. Now, I submit it to every enlightened Englishman to decide whether Kossuth evinced a want of civic virtue in declaring that, as a man who wished freedom for himself, he could not rejoice in the sending of troops to subjugate another people struggling against the same tyrant?

Referring to the policy of the ministry, M. Szemere says "that Count Louis Bathyanyi declared, on the 31st March, that the obligation enjoined by the Pragmatic Sanction was such that Hungary was bound thereby to defend the territorial integrity of the Austrian monarchy, but that they (the ministers) would carefully avoid interfering in the internal affairs of the states that const.i.tuted this monarchy."

Irrespective of this--that Count Bathyanyi explained the policy in March, when Hungary enjoyed perfect peace, whereas the debate on the Italian question happened in the midst of most threatening civil wars carried on directly by Austria--it must be remembered that if by the 1st article of the Pragmatic Sanction Hungary was bound to afford aid to Austria _etiam contra vim externam_, that same article provided that the States composing the realm of Hungary were to be preserved by the monarch _aeque indivisibiliter_ as his hereditary estates; and that by the 3d article of that celebrated law the Sovereign promised, for himself and his successors, to compel his subjects of every state and degree to observe the laws and rights of Hungary. It is therefore evident that the infraction of this law, by the countenance and aid furnished to the Serbs (as also to Jellachich), fully exonerated the Hungarians from sending troops to Italy before they had provided for the safety of their country, and fully justified them and their responsible minister for drawing the attention of their Sovereign to it in the address to the Crown. M. Szemere talks of protecting the integrity of the Austrian empire, and carefully avoiding to interfere with the internal affairs of other states. The Czar may indeed exclaim, with M.

Szemere, that in sending his Cossacks into Hungary he never intended to interfere in our internal affairs.

The second charge, as to Kossuth's striving to concentrate in his person all power and authority, is, I fear, indicative of the animus which prompted M. Szemere to write these letters, namely, jealousy of his great countryman. The charge, however, is entirely without foundation: and the only question is, as to how Kossuth acquired such unbounded influence over his countrymen of every rank and station. The means by which Kossuth gained such an ascendancy over his colleagues, M. Szemere himself must own, were, the implicit confidence the country placed in his patriotism, and the conviction it had acquired of his genius and indefatigable activity. In moments of extreme danger no name was heard but that of Kossuth. I am far from a.s.serting that all Kossuth has done is exempt from censure; but it must, on the other hand, be admitted that all that was grand in our revolution happened by his instrumentality.

His mere appearance, as, for instance, in Debreczin, January, 1849, when the second danger seemed to overwhelm the country, roused the frightened people of the Thesis, who crowded under the national standard and shattered to pieces the Austrian forces.

The fall of Hungary can only be traced to the following three circ.u.mstances:--1st. That it was not believed that European diplomacy would allow Russian intervention. 2d. That our plan of warfare, directed by the council of war, and not by Kossuth, wanted that concentration which could alone have ensured success. 3d. That the character of Gorgei, whom our generals never accused of treacherous designs, was a mystery: nay, the patriotic General Perczel, who proclaimed loudly Gorgei's treachery from the very beginning, had the satisfaction to be laughed at and hooted down. To impute these disastrous circ.u.mstances to Kossuth alone, is to render one's self guilty of the greatest perversion of generally acknowledged and incontrovertible facts.

A HUNGARIAN EXILE.