The Sun.
London, England, 1849-11-15 00:00:00

GERMANY

AND

FHE NORTHERN STATES.

AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY.

FAREWELL ADDRESS OF KOSSUTH TO HIS

COUNTRYMEN.

The following is the farewell address of KOSSUTH
to his country. It is dated from Orsova.
"Farewell, my beloved country ! Farewell, land
of the Magyar ! Farewell, thou land of sorrow ! I
shall never more behold the summit of thy moun-
tains. I shall never again give the name of my
country to that cherished soil where I drank from
my mother's bosom the milks of justice and liberty.
Pardon, oh ! pardon him Ntho is henceforth condemned
to wander far from thee, because he combated for thy
happiness. Pardon one who can only call free that spot
of thy soil where he now kneels with a few of the faithful
children of conquered Hungary ! My last looks are
fixed on my country, and I see thee overwhelmed with
anguish. I look into the future, but that future is
overshadowed. Thy plains are covered with blood,
the redness of which pitiless destruction will change
to black, the emblem of mourning for the victories
thy sons have gained over the sacrilegious enemies of
thy sacred soil.
" How many grateful hearts have sent their
prayers to the throne of the Almighty ! How many
tears have gushed from their very depth to implore
pity 1 How much blood has been shed to testify that
the Magyar idolizes his country, and that he knows
' how to die for it. And yet, land of my love, thou art in
slavery ! From thy very bosom will be forged the
chain to bind all that is sacred, and to aid all that
is sacrilegious. 0 Almighty Creator, if thou lovest thy
people to whom thou didst give victory under our
heroic ancestor, Arpad,* I implore thee not to sink
them into degradation. I speak to thee, my country,
thus from the abyss of my despair, and whilst yet
lingering on the threshold of thy soil. Pardon me
that a great number of thy sons have shed their blood
for thee on my account. I pleaded for thee—l hoped
for thee, even in the dark moment when on thy brow
was written the withering word Despair.' I lifted
my voice in thy behalf when men said, thou a
slave.' I girt the sword about my loins, and I grasped
the bloody plume, even when they said, Thou art no
longer a nation on the soil of the Magyar.'
" Time has written thy destiny on the pages of thy
story in yellow and black letters—Death. The
Colossus of the North has set his seal to the sentence.
But the glowing iron of the east shall melt that seal.
" For thee, my country, that hest shed so much
blood, there is no pity ; for does not the tyrant eat
his bread on the hills formed of the bones of thy
children

" The ingrate whom thou hadst fattened with thy
abundance, he rose against thee ; he rose against thee,
the traitor to his mother, and destroyed thee utterly.
Thou bast endured fall; thou bast not cursed thine
existence, for in thy bosom, and far above all sorrow,
hope has built her nest.
" Magyars turn not aside your looks from me, for
at this moment mine eyes flow with tears for you, for
the soil on which my tottering steps still wander is
named Hungary.
" My country, it is not the iron of the stranger
that bath dug thy grave ; it is not the thunder of
fourteen nations, all arrayed against thee, that
bath destroyed thee ; and it is not the fifteenth
nation, traversing the Carpathians, that has
forced thee to drop thy arms. No! Thou
hast been betrayed ; thou hast been sold, my
country ; thy death-sentence bath been written, be-
loved of my heart, by him whose virtue, whose
love for thee I never dared to doubt. Yes ! in the
fervour of my boldest thoughts, I should have almost
as soon doubted of the existence of the Omnipotent as
have believed that he cotild ever be a traitor to his
country. Thou bast been betrayed by him in whose
hands I had but a little space before deposited the
power of our great country, which he swore to
defend, even to the last drop of his heart's blood.
He bath done treason to his mother ; for the glitter
of gold hath been for him more seductive than that
of the blood shed to save his country. Base gain

* The Arpad alluded to by Kossuth is the celebrated
chief or khan of the Hungarians who, when driven with
his tribes from the banks of the Volga, towards the end
of the ninth century, settled on the Theiss, and as the
ally of the Emperor Arnoul beat the Moravians, in the
year 895. Under the weak rule of the son of Arnoul,
Lewis, surnamed the Child, ho became master of Pan•
dkyenptastthye, whichthrone b
nonia, which the Hungarians have since then kept pos-
session of. Arpad gave his name to a Hungarian
tille ganthweithdeSa
tt.hSotefpAhenndrienw IH
997,
.anind whichl3ol
i.
' This race of kings is known as the Arpades.