S. VUKOVICS,

Late Minister of Justice of Hungary.

London, January 17, 1852.

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Appendix II.—­Extracts from a Letter to the ‘Times,’ dated December 9th, 1851, by Bartholomew Szemere, late Minister of the Interior in Hungary; in answer to Prince Esterhazy.

I shall now proceed to give a succinct account of what took place from April 14, when the new acts received the Royal sanction, to December, 1848.  You may be assured that I shall conceal nothing that tended to change the relations between Hungary and Austria.

The Prime Minister was already nominated when Jellachich was raised to the dignity of Ban of Croatia by a Royal decree which the Premier was not even asked to countersign.  The Hungarian ministers, nevertheless, for the sake of peace, overlooked this irregular proceeding.

By a decree, dated June 10, 1848, the King made known to all whom it might concern, that all the troops stationed within the kingdom of Hungary, whether Hungarians or Austrians, were placed under the orders of the Hungarian Minister of War, and that all the Hungarian fortresses were under the jurisdiction of the said Minister.  Yet at this very time officers of the Imperial and Royal army were taking an active part in the rebellion of the Serbs and Valachs, while General Mayerhofer was enlisting recruits in the principality of Servia, and sending them to assist the rebels.  The people thus beheld with astonishment civil war break out, and saw with still greater astonishment that Imperial officers were fighting on both sides.

Jellachich, as a functionary of the Hungarian Crown, refused to obey the Hungarian ministry, and illegally summoned a Croatian Diet to meet at Agram on June 5.  In consequence of these proceedings, Ferdinand V., by a decree dated June 10, 1848, deprived him, as a rebel, of all his civil and military offices and dignities, but at the same time sent him, through his Minister of War, Latour, field officers, artillery and ammunition.

The troubles increased daily.  The Hungarian ministry requested the Archduke John to act us mediator.  He accepted the office, but did nothing.

The Diet met on July 2.  The Palatine, as the representative of the Sovereign in the speech from the Throne, said that, as several districts were in a state of open rebellion, the principal objects to which, in the name of His Majesty, he should direct the attention of the Diet were the finances and the defences of the country, and that bills relating to these objects would be brought in by the Ministers.  He then proceeded as follows:—­“His Majesty has learned with painful feelings, that although he only followed the dictates of his own gracious inclination, when, at the request of the faithful Hungarian people, he gave his sovereign sanction to the laws enacted by the last Diet—­laws which the common weal, according to the exigencies of the present age,