Even Ireland could only lose by this.  And besides its own loss, this might perhaps be just the decisive blow against liberty; whereas if the government of England, otherwise remaining as it is, do but unite with you not to allow foreign interference with our struggles on the continent this would become almost a sure guarantee of the victory of those struggles; and, according as circumstances stand, that would be indeed the most practical benefit to the noble people of Ireland also, because freedom, independence, and the principles of natural law could not fail to benefit their cause, which so well merits the sympathy of every just man and they have also the sympathy—­I know it—­of the better half of England itself.

Hatred is no good counsellor, gentlemen.  The wisdom of love is a better one.  What people has suffered more than my poor Hungary has from Russia?  Shall I hate the people of Russia for it?  Oh never!  I have but pity and Christian brotherly love for it.  It is the government, it is the principle of the government, which makes every drop of my blood boil and which must fall, if humanity is to live.  We were for centuries in war against the Turks, and God knows what we have suffered by it!  But past is past.  Now we have a common enemy, and thus we have a common interest, a mutual esteem, and love rules where our fathers have fought.

Gentlemen, how far this supreme duty toward your own interest will allow you to go in giving life and effect to the principle which you so generously proclaim, and which your party (as I have understood) have generously proclaimed in different parts—­that you will in your wisdom decide, remaining always the masters of your action and of your fate.  But that principle will rest; that principle is true; that principle is just; and you are just, because you are free.  I hope therefore to see you cordially unite with me once more in the sentiment—­“Intervention for non-intervention.”

* * * * *

XIX.—­MEANING OF RECOGNIZING.

[Last Speech at Washington.]

In returning thanks to all the citizens here assembled, and to yourself, sir, in particular,[*] I beg to add some remarks.  That I have not here been honoured with the same demonstrations of local cordiality as in other places, I do not, with you, attribute to diplomatic influences.  I know well the skill of Russian diplomacy, which indeed at Moldovarica instructs all its representatives to marry Moldovarican ladies.  But I also know that the framers of your Constitution wisely discouraged the development of municipal life in the district of Columbia, lest local influences and pressure from without on the seat of the central legislature might unduly sway the national councils.  Just so, we have often known a single street in Paris coerce the deliberations of the nation.  Columbia having, as I understand, by an exceptional arrangement, no true local self-government, is deficient in local movement.  Nevertheless, I have received private expression of sentiment and of generous kind sympathy from various parts of this district, and chiefly from the city of Washington.