The Express.
London, England, 1851-10-22 00:00:00

‘4 TO LOT'S ROASTER, LATE GOVERNOR OF 111:NOART.

" Honoured Sir,—We, the inhabitants of Leeds, assem-
bled for the purpose of presenting to you a congratulatory
address on your liberation from imprisonment and arrival
in this country, approach you with at once the profoundest
respect and the sincerest affection. We watched, with the
deepest interest and anxiety, your noble struggle for the
maintenance of constitutional liberty in Hungary; we
heard, with great regret, of your betrayal and defeat; we
sympathised with you in your long and unjustifiable impri-
sonment, and rejoiced to hear of your liberation ; and now,
with the utmost gratification and delight, we give you a
right hearty English welcome to our native land. An exile
for a time (rein your own country, we are delighted to
give you honour as a 'offering patriot ; and though at-
tempts have been made to lessen our esteem for you by
attacks of which wo are ashamed that they arc written
in our language, we regard you none the less as one
who, by his noolenesi and consistency, has earned the
thanks, not only of Ids country, but of his race. Your
name, sir, is with RA a household word; we talk of you to
our children, and tell the tale of your patriotism as we
gather round our hearthstone. We do not need to remind
you that such struggles as that you have been engaged in
are never ultimately unsuccessful; we look forward with
hope to the day when your expectations, and those of your
countrymen, will all be realised, and we pray that you may
not only be shored till then, and that you may be permitted
to share in the high rejoicings that such a consummation
will oemsion, but that you may enjoy, meantime, that hap-
piness which you of all men have a right to, which can
alone bo secured by the consciousness that you have nobly
done your duty. (Signed)
" Given at the Court-house, in Leeds, on the 20th day of
October, 18.51."
Mr. W. Ilnoox seconded, and Mr. Councillor llonsoN
supported, the address, which was agreed to amidst loud
cheering.
Mr. W. BRUCE moved the next resolution : " That the
address just adopted be forwarded to Richard Cobden, Esq.,
member for the West Ridiug, with the respectful request
that he will undertake its presentation to Kossuth on WWI
of the meeting."
Mr. T. L. PRENTIS seconded the resolution, which was
agreed to nens con.
Mr. RHODES moved the last resolution: "That M.
Louis Kossuth be requested to visit Leeds at his earliest
convenience; and that Mr. Cobden be requested personally
to convey to him this invitation." The speaker hoped it
Kossuth came that there would be a general holiday ; and
that they would make the streets echo with the joyful sound
of their cheers as they had never doac before. (Much
cheering.)
The resolution was seconded and carried with acclamation.
A vote of thanks was given to the chairman, and the
meeting separated.

KOSSUTH AND " THE TIMES."

[Front a pamphlet just published by the author of " Re-

rclaiion; of lCussiti." Londoti. C. Gilpin.]

There arc five great features in Kossuth'e biography,
which arc facts in whatever light prejudice may regard
them. His persistance in publishing the debates, and con-
sequent imprisonment—his management of Hungarian
tinauce—his emancipation of the serfs—his resistance to
Jellachich (when Jellachich was at the gates of unarmed
Perth), and his expulsion from the Hungarian territories,
when all his colleagues had given up the cause as lost, and,
lastly, the second re-conothest by his armies, as governor of
Hungary, of the whole Hungarian territory, after Batthy-
any had been arrcitcd and the Diet compelled to retire be-
yond the Theirs.

These facts the Times writer has neglected to adduce,
but has supplied a full equivalent of fictions in their place.
lfe speaks of the self-seeking and arbitrary spirit of his
(Kossiith's) administration." Few men have been more
consistently disinterested than Kossuth. When imprisoned
in 18311 fur his spirited persistanee in the assertion of a
public right, a stim was sulsieribed for the support of his
mother, on the interest of which she lived during the four
years of his incarceration. When the growing strength of
public opinion obliged the Austrian government to liberate
bins, Kossuth refused to accept the principal of the sum,
which was devoted by his desire to the foundation of a
school for the encouragement of national industry. When,

subsequently, Batthyany and certain magnates, to secure
him an independent position, which would permit him to
devote his time, uninterruptedly, to the public service,
clubbed together to present him with a considerable estate,
he refused, inflexibly, the donation—when after the battle
of Temcnar he resigned the reins of government into
Gurgi bands, his last quarter's salary as governor of
Hungary was still in the public treasury, and yet on a con-
stitutional scruple he scut back, without paying himself out
of it, 600,000/., in bullion, by Dusehek, wLo surrendered it
to Austria to make his peace.

When he reached Viddin his whole worldly gear, as I
personally witnessed, was contained in a portmanteau with-
out a lock, and a pair of open saddle-bags.
Can the writer adduce one instance of the violation of the
constitution ?—Under circumstances of imminent public
peril, the Hungarian Diet, legally elected, conferred on
Kossuth the dignity of Governor of Hungary, with dicta.
torial powers. Unfortunately fur his country, he cannot be
said ever to have exercised them. So sincere was always
his respect for the decisions of parliamentary majorities
that, when Windischgrats was advancing upon l'estb, in
deference to that majority and against his better judgment,
he permitted overtures to be made, whose fruitless issue he
foresaw, and which legally could not have been made with-
out his sanction. Friends and foes have reproached him
with the weakness which cannot punish. On no occasion
did he ever put to death a human being, and amidst all the
exigencies of the Titanic war which he sustained, it was his
boast that he had 'Wirer carried it on by those military re-
quisitions, to which, within their own or friendly terri-
tories, the Russians and the Austrians have had resort.
• • • •

" Brought into the Diet by Count Zieby," it proceeds,
" Count Zichy never brought Kossuth anywhere but into the
columns of the Times. this unfortunate nobleman, who
had no more to do with Kosauth's parliamentary career
than Colonel Sibthorp or Mr. Walter, entered Hungary as
the agent of Jellaehich, after the invasion of that country
with tire anal sword by the Ban, whom the Emperor of Aus-
tria, whilst secretly instkiating, had officially declared a rebel
and a traitor. The carriage of Count Zichy was found full
of Jelluchich's proclamations, and being a Hungarian born,
he was condemned to death, on undisputed evidence, by
court-martial. Geirgey hanged him. How is it that the
writers of the Times forget that this unlucky Zichy got
them into a scrape before, when they asserted that Kossuth
bad purloined his emerald spurs, and circumstantially spe-
cified that they were offered by the ez-Governor of Hungary
to the Pacha of Viddin, on the feast of the Bairarn, hale
su•peetiug that there should Lieu !soca then in England a
person (myself) who, by a strange coincidence, happened to
have been present during the whole of that very slut, and
who could testify that Kossuth bad offered nothing to the
Pasha beyond the compliments of the season ?