XXXVI.-THE IDES OF MARCH.

[Farewell Speech at St. Louis, March 15th.]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: To-day is the fourth anniversary of the Revolution in Hungary.

Anniversaries of Revolutions are almost always connected with the recollection of some patriots, death-fallen on that day, like the Spartans at Thermopylæ, martyrs of devotion to their fatherland.

Almost in every country there is some proud cemetery, or some modest tombstone, adorned on such a day by a garland of evergreen, the pious offering of patriotic tenderness.

I past the last night in a sleepless dream. And my soul wandered on the magnetic wings of the past, home to my beloved bleeding land, and I saw in the dead of the night, dark veiled shapes, with the paleness of eternal grief upon their brow, but terrible in the tearless silence of that grief, gliding over the churchyards of Hungary, and kneeling down to the head of the graves, and depositing the pious tribute of green and cypress upon them; and after a short prayer rising with clenched fists, and gnashing teeth, and then stealing away tearless and silent as they came-stealing away, because the blood-hounds of my country's murderer lurks from every corner on that night, and on this day, and leads to prison those who dare to show a pious remembrance to the beloved. To-day, a smile on the lips of a Magyar is taken for a crime of defiance to tyranny, and a tear in his eye is equivalent to a revolt. And yet I have seen, with the eye of my home-wandering soul, thousands performing the work of patriotic piety.

And I saw more. When the pious offerers stole away, I saw the honoured dead half risen from their tombs, looking to the offerings, and whispering gloomily, "still a cypress, and still no flower of joy! Is there still the chill of winter and the gloom of night over thee, fatherland? are we not yet revenged?" and the sky of the east reddened suddenly, and quivered with bloody flames, and from the far, far west, a lightning flashed like a star-spangled stripe, and within its light a young eagle mounted and soared towards the quivering flames of the east, and as he drew near, upon his

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approaching, the flames changed into a radiant morning sun, and a voice from above was heard in answer to the question of the dead:

"Sleep yet a short while; mine is the revenge. I will make the stars of the west, the sun of the east: and when ye next awake, ye will find the flower of joy upon your cold bed.” And the dead took the twig of cypress, the sign of resurrection, into their bony hands and lay down.

Such was the dream of my waking soul, and I prayed, and such was my prayer: "Father, if thou deemest me worthy, take the cup from my people, and give it in their stead to me." And there was a whisper around me like the word “ Amen.” Such was my dream, half foresight and half prophecy; but resolution all. However, none of those dead whom I saw, fell on the 15th of March. They were victims of the royal perjury which betrayed the 15th of March. The anniversary of our revolution has not the stain of a single drop of blood.

We, the elect of the nation, sat on that morning busily but quietly in the legislative hall of old Presburg, and without any flood of eloquence, passed our laws in short words, that the people shall be free; the burdens of feudality cease; the peasant become free proprietor; that equality of duties, equality of rights, shall be the fundamental law; and civil, political, social, and religious liberty, the common property of all the people, whatever tongue it may speak, or in whatever church pray, and that a national ministry shall execute these laws, and guard with its responsibility the chartered ancient independence of our Fatherland.

Two days before, Austria's brave people in Vienna had broken its yoke; and summing up despots in the person of its tool, old Metternich, drove him away, and the Hapsburgs, trembling in their imperial cavern of imperial crimes, trembling, but treacherous, and lying and false, wrote with yardlong letters, the words, "Constitution" and "Free Press," upon Vienna's walls; and the people in joy cheered the inveterate liars, because the people knows no falsehood.

On the 14th I announced the tidings from Vienna to our Parliament at Presburg. The announcement was swiftly carried by the great democrat, the steam-engine, upon the

billows of the Danube, down to old Buda and to young Pesth, and while we, in the House of Representatives, passed the laws of justice and freedom, the people of Pesth rose in peaceful but majestic manifestation, declaring that the people should be free. At this manifestation, all the barriers raised by violence against the laws, fell of themselves. Not a drop of blood was shed. A man who was in prison because he had dared to write a book, was carried home in triumph through the streets. The people armed itself as a National Guard, the windows were illuminated, and bonfires burnt; and when these tidings returned back to Presburg, blended with the cheers from Vienna, they warmed the chill of our House of Lords, who readily agreed to the laws we proposed. And there was rejoicing throughout the land. For the first time for centuries the farmer awoke with the pleasant feeling that his time was now his own-for the first time went out to till his field with the consoling thought that the ninth part of his harvest will not be taken by the landlord, and the tenth by the bishop. Both had fully resigned their feudal portion, and the air was brightened by the lustre of freedom, and the very soil budding into a blooming paradise.

Such is the memory of the 15th of March, 1848.

One year later there was blood, but also victory, over the land; the people, because free, fought like demi-gods. Seven great victories we had gained in that month of March. On this very day, the remains of the first 10,000 Russians fled, over the frontiers of Transylvania, to tell at home how heavily the blow falls from free Hungarian arms. It was in that very month that one evening I lay down in the bed, whence in the morning Windischgrätz had risen; and from the battle-field (Isaszeg) I hastened to the Congress at Debreczin, to tell the Representatives of the nation: "It is time to declare our national independence, because it is really achieved. The Hapsburgs have not the power to contradict it more." Nor had they. But Russia, having experienced by the test of its first interference, that there was no power on earth caring about the most flagrant violation of the laws of nations, and seeing by the silence of Great Britain and of the United States, that she may dare to violate those laws, our heroes

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had to meet a fresh force of nearly 200,000 Russians. No power cheered our bravely won independence, by diplomatic recognition; not even the United States, though they always professed their principle to be that they recognize every de-facto government. We therefore had the right to expect a speedy recognition from the United States. Our struggle rose to European height, but we were left alone to fight for the world; and we had no arms for the new battalions, gathering up in thousands with resolute hearts and empty hands.

The recognition of our independence being withheld, commercial intercourse for procuring arms abroad was impossible -the gloomy feeling of entire forsakedness spread over our tired ranks, and prepared the field for the secret action of treachery; until the most sacrilegious violation of those common laws of nations was achieved and the code of "nature and of nature's God" was drowned in Hungary's blood. And I, who on the 15th of March, 1848, saw the principle of full civil and religious liberty triumphing in my native land-who on the 15th of March, 1849, saw this freedom consolidated by victories—one year later, on the 15th of March, 1850, was on my sorrowful way to an Asiatic prison.

But wonderful are the works of Divine Providence. It was again in the month of March 1851, that the generous interposition of the United States cast the first ray of hope into the dead night of my captivity. And on the 15th of March, 1852, the fourth anniversary of our Revolution, guided by the bounty of Providence, here I stand in the very heart of your immense Republic; no longer a captive, but free in the land of the free, not only not desponding, but firm in confidence of the future, because raised in spirits by a swelling sympathy in the home of the brave, still a poor, a homeless exile, but not without some power to do good to my country and to the cause of liberty, as my very persecution proves.

Such is the history of the 15th of March, in my humble life. Who can tell what will be the character of the next 15th of March?

Nearly two thousand years ago the Brutus on the Ides or 15th of March. of March, 1853, will see the last of the

first Cæsar found a May be that the Ides Cæsars fall under the

ON THE HUNGARIAN EXILES.

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avenging might of a thousand-handed Brutus-the name of whom is "the people "-inexorable at last after it has been so long generous. The seat of Cæsars was first in the south, from the south to the east, from the east to the west, and from the west to the north. That is their last abode. None was lasting yet. Will the last, and worst, prove luckier ? No, it will not. While the seat of Cæsars was tossed around and thrown back to the icy north, a new world became the cradle of a new humanity, where in spite of the Cæsars, the genius of freedom, raised (let us hope) an everlasting throne. The Cæsar of the north and the genius of freedom have not place enough upon this earth for both of them; one must yield and be crushed beneath the heels of the other. Which is it. Which shall yield?-America may decide.

Allow me to add a few remarks in dry and plain words, on other subjects. It is not necessary to explain why I am attacked by Russia, Austria, and their allies. But some of you, gentlemen, may have felt surprized to see that two Hungarians have joined in the attack, both of whom accepted the office of ministers from my hands, and held that office under my good pleasure, and from my will, till we all three proceeded into exile on the same evening. My two assailants now live and act under the protection of Louis Napoleon, who did not permit me even to pass through France.

You may yet find perhaps some more joining them, but the number will not be large. Oh! the bitter pangs of an exile's daily life are terrible. I have seen many a character faltering under the constant petty care of how to live, which stood firm like a rock under the storm of a quaking world, therefore I should not be surprized to find yet some few joining in those attacks, as I have neither means nor time to care for the wants of individuals, not even of my own children. What I get is not mine, but my country's; and must be employed to secure its future prospects; and it may be that others may avail themselves of this circumstance, and show some temporary compassion to private misfortune, under the condition of secession from me, with the purpose of being then able to say that the cause of Hungary is hopeless, because not even the Hungarian exiles live in concord. That may happen