“Revenge on a tyrant is sweetest of all:” 

Not for that reason.  But I hope that the oppressed nations will not again stop half way, and sacrifice their future to untimely generosity; for they have all paid too cruelly for the lesson, that with tyrants there is no faith.  So there must be no dealing with them.

Yet, Gentlemen, it is not for Hungary’s worth, nor for Hungary’s sufferings that I claim protection for her; but because as in her the law of nations has been strikingly trampled down, so in her this law must be vindicated.  Else, the league of despots will be able to enforce it as a precedent against all free nations; no law will henceforth be sure on earth, and oppression will rule the world.

It is indeed a new doctrine that all despots have a right to interfere with every attempt of a people to regulate its own institutions; and that oppression in each separate nation is to be upheld by a foreign Czar.  According to this, freedom and independence are everywhere proscribed, as inconsistent with the security of absolutism,—­to which every other consideration is to yield.

I have been indeed astonished to meet the reply, that the cause which I plead is not worthy of much consideration, “since, after all, it is only the cause of one country!” I have read that the Borgias were wont to say, that Italy is like the artichoke, which must be eaten leaf by leaf.  Let me tell those, with whom Hungary is but one leaf of the artichoke, that the despot who is allowed to nibble each leaf separately, will manage to dispose of the whole.

My opponents say; I myself confess my cause to be that of one country only:  for in claiming “non-interference,” I show my desire to abandon all other countries but my own to their oppressors!  I may be permitted to ask,—­Is there any truth in the world which may not be distorted into a mockery?

Russia is the strength of oppression.  Her force in the background emboldens every petty tyrant and makes every oppressed nation despond:  not because she is so very powerful, but because all foresee distinctly that she will act unshrinkingly in the tyrant’s favour so soon as he needs it.  We fought, beat, crushed the Austrian emperor, of course not without sacrifice.  You know that your own brave Duquesne Greys lost in one action more than half their men.  Now, if after a victory gained at such a price, Russia steps in with a fresh force, well provided with every means of war, though that force be not such as one could not resist, it is formidable as a rearguard, falling fresh upon a nation exhausted with its very victories.  Suppose that at the close of your own Mexican victories, you had to meet a fresh host of 100,000 well-disciplined men, what would have been the fate of your gallant army, which entered the city of Montezuma?