And besides, there was republican America, quite in another shape than she was twenty years before, at the time of the war of independence in Greece.  Then she had not yet extended her sway to the Pacific, and was not yet exposed to be so much affected by the political issues of Europe and Asia as she now is:  then she had not yet a population of more than twenty millions, who now are in the necessity to claim the position of a power on earth:  then she was indeed a new world teeming with the mysteries of the future, but yet was far from being what she is to-day; nay, even the Erie Canal, the great artery which now acts as a miraculous link between Europe and the interior of your republic, was only about to be completed at the time.  And still what mighty sympathy! a sympathy warm in expression, and not barren in facts, thrilled through all America, much like that which I now meet, and pervaded even your national councils:—­would I were entitled to say, much like as now!  Although the question of Greece was of course worthy of all interest (as the cause of liberty always and everywhere is), yet it was only an isolated cause, and by no means of such surpassing influence upon the condition of the world as the cause of Hungary was, and is.

And yet I was disappointed in the expectation which I derived from your own history, that a just cause will find supporters and never will be forsaken by all.  Oh, we were forsaken, gentlemen!  We were forsaken even at the crisis, when, single-handed, we had defeated our cruel enemy.  And Russia, that personification of despotism, stepped in with its iron weight, tearing to pieces the law of nations, and overthrowing upon our ruins the balance of power on earth.

That Russia, if invited, would snatch at the opportunity to gain preponderance amongst the powers on earth—­of this I entertained not the slightest doubt; but I must confess, I did not believe either that Austria would claim, or that the other powers of the earth, and chiefly Great Britain and America, would permit the intervention of Russia.  I could not believe that Austria would resort to this desperate remedy, because (and it is a remarkable circumstance which I mention now for the first time) it was Austria which but a few years before, when, in the transactions with Turkey, the question of foreign interference for the maintenance of the integrity of the Turkish empire was agitated in the councils of the world (and from which you of course were excluded, as to the present day you always yet have been, as if you were nothing but a patch of earth); yes, it was Austria, which objecting that the guarantee of interference should be even claimed, pronounced in a solemn diplomatic note these memorable words:—­

"A State ought never to accept, and still less request, of another State, a service for which it is unable to offer in return a strict reciprocity; else by accepting such favour she loses the flower of her own independence—­a State accepting such a favour becomes a mediatized State:  it makes an act of submission to the will of the State which takes the charge of its defence; this State becomes a protector, and to be dependent upon a protector is insupportable."