About three hundred persons sat down to dinner, a large portion of them members of the legislature.  Governor Johnston presided, assisted by Ex-Senator Cameron.  A toast complimentary to Governor Johnston having been drunk with great enthusiasm, the Governor briefly responded.  After returning his thanks for the compliment, he alluded to the mission of Kossuth.  The great Magyar came here not for sympathy alone, but for aid for the cause of republican freedom.  He not only wanted that, but encouragement of our government in aid of the cause of down-trodden Hungary.  No profession, but action was wanted; and he exhorted his hearers never to cease acting, until the government took the high ground necessary to secure to Hungary the simple justice she demanded.  In conclusion he gave the third toast: 

“Hungary—­Betrayed but not subdued; her constitution violated, her people in chains, her chief in exile.  The star of freedom will yet shine through the dark night of her adversity.”

Kossuth, in response, opened by lamenting that the perpetual claims upon his time, and the pressure of sorrowful feelings on his heart, made it impossible for him to study how to address them suitably.  He proceeded to say: 

But to what purpose is eloquence here?  Have you not anticipated my wishes?  Have you not sanctioned my principles?  Are you not going on to action, as generous men do, who are conscious of their power and of their aim?  Well, to what purpose, then, is eloquence here?  I have only to thank—­and that is more eloquently told by a warm grasp of the hand than by all the skilful arrangement of words.

I beg therefore your indulgence for laying before you some mere facts, which perhaps may contribute to strengthen your conviction that the people of the United States, in bestowing its sympathy upon my cause, does not support a dead cause, but one which has a life, and whose success is rationally sure.

Let me before all cast a glance at the enemy.  And let those imposed upon by the attitude of despotism in 1852, consider how much stronger it was in 1847-8.  France was lolled by Louis Philippe’s politics, of “peace at any price,” into apathy.  Men believed in the solidity of his government.  No heart-revolting cruelty stirred the public mind.  No general indignation from offended national self-esteem prevailed.  The stability of the public credit encouraged the circulation of capital, and by that circulation large masses of industrious poor found, if not contentment, at least daily bread.  The King was taken for a prudent man; and the private morality of his family cast a sort of halo around his house.  The spirit of revolution was reduced to play the meagre game of secret associations; not seconded by any movement of universal interest—­the spirit of radical innovation was restrained into scientific polemic, read by few and understood by fewer.  There was a faith in the patriotic authority of certain