I therefore confess that I trusted to that instruction also of your history, and hoped that should we prove worthy of the attention of the world, that attention would not be restricted to a mere looking at our contest with barren sympathies.  But allow me to mention that it was not from America alone that I hoped our struggle would not be regarded with indifference:  the example of former political transactions in Europe entitled me to just expectations from other quarters also in that respect.

When Greece heroically rose to assert its independence, Great Britain, France, and even Russia herself, interposed together to pacify the two contending parties, on the basis of the establishment of an independent Greece.  And so very anxious were those great powers to stop the effusion of blood, that they solemnly declared they would insist upon the pacification, should even the conflicting parties decline to consent to the proposed arrangements.  And thus Greece took its seat among the independent States, though that was possible only by reducing the territory of the Ottoman Empire, the integrity of which was considered essential to the equilibrium of political power on earth.

Besides, what were those powers which interposed their mediation in favour of bleeding Greece?  It was Russia, despotical as she is:  it was legitimist France, then scarcely to be called constitutional; for it was before the revolution of 1830:  and it was the ministry of Great Britain, then, if I am not mistaken, a Tory one.

Now was I not entitled with this precedent before my eyes, to hope that the bloody struggle in Hungary would not be regarded with indifference?  We had not risen from any reckless excitement to assert new rights, or to experiment on new theories; we should have been contented to keep what we lawfully possessed.  It was not we who broke the peace; we were assailed with a perjury more sacrilegious than the world has ever seen:—­we merely took up arms to defend ourselves against national extermination, against the nameless cruelties inflicted upon our people,—­men, women, children,—­by fire, murder, war, and royal perjury.  And besides, when we took up arms in legitimate defence, it so happened that in France there was a republic established which proclaimed the principle of universal fraternity; and there was in England a ministry claiming to be liberal, which on a former occasion had solemnly vouched its word to the British parliament, that constitutional independence of any country, great or small, would never be a matter of indifference to the English government; adding emphatically, that whoever might be in office, conducting the affairs of Great Britain, he would not perform his duty if he were inattentive to the interests of such States. Am I to blame for having thought that there is and should be morality in politics?