The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-26 00:00:00

111,6.„
~.Oftlt'rMnett

LOD:DON, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1849.

Hungary—whether by treason, or by brute force,
or by both combined, it matters not, as far as our
present argument is concerned—has been invaded,
desolated, and conquered, has been trodden down
under the feet of a despotic coalition. One party to
this great crime of cruelty and spoliation has with-
drawn her forces. The Russians have retired beyond
the northern boundaries of Transylvania. The
Austrians have been left sole masters of the van-
quished country. German soldiers have garrisoned
the fortresses. German civilians are already being
installed in all the lucrative offices of the Administra-
tion. German captains, headed by the ever-infamous
lILYNAU, have erected their military tribunals in the
principal cities, to stab and strangle, to shoot and
hang, to destroy by the musket and by the gibbet,
those heroic hut unfortunate patriots who, while
repelling the advance of their assailants, only afforded
them the noblest examples of magnanimity. Hence-
forth Austria must be regarded, in its relation to
Hungary-, as •ccupying the position of a robber and
an assassin. Henceforth the Austrian EMPEROR
must be viewed simply and exclusively in the light

of an Usurper.
During the last eight hundred years Hungary has
appeared in the history and on the chart of Europe as
an independent nation. It has had during those eight
centuries a Representation of its own, a Constitution
of its own, and a Government of its own. Subject to
no other kingdom beyond its frontiers, it has,
throughout that long period, preserved all its popular
rights intact, rights of immemorial antiquity. It is
true, undoubtedly, that the royal office has been
latterly filled by the reigning Sovereign of that
heterogeneous assemblage of states called Austria ;
but that union of the regal dignity in the person of
the representative of the Hapsburg dynasty is of
comparatively recent date ; and it must, moreover, be
borne in recollection that it was conferred upon the
descendants of RUDOLPH voluntarily by the Magyars
—at first electively, and afterwards as a hereditary
rank on certain conditions. Those conditions were to
swear fealty to the Hungarian Constitution on the
day of coronation, and to observe that solemn oath
with truthfulness after coronation. Nov, according
to the latter stipulation, FERDINAND the Faineant
forfeited the crown of St. Stephen by breaking his
engagement; and according to the former stipulation
Frcaricrs JOSEPH, the Woman-Flogger, has no more
right to that crown than we have, never having been
selected as its possessor by the Magyars, and conse-
quently never having taken the requisite oath on the
day of coronation.
So glaring and preposterous is the folly of calling
Hungary an Austrian province that it has been
scouted as an absurdity by every rational juriscon-
suit. One has even gone so far has to declare em-
phatically—" If England is a province of Hanover,
then, and not any more, is Hungary a province of
Austria; and King ERNEST of Hanover has, at least,
as much right to the throne of England as FRANCIS
JOSEPH has to that of Hungary." Indeed the relative
position in which Austria stands to Hungary could
not have been more felicitously indicated than by this
comparison between it and the relation subsisting
between Hanover and England. Besides, even sup-
. posing FRANCIS JOSEPH to have been crowned, like
his predecessor FERDINAND, with the diadem of St.
Stephen, the Magyars would still retain the power
possessed and exercised at intervals by them-
selves during no less than six centuries,
the power of deposing their monarch at pleasure.
For it is expressly decreed in the Magna Charta,of
the Hungarians, namely, in the Bulla Aurea of 1222,
that the people hold the right of resistance whenso-
ever the King or any of his successors fail to observe
the terms of that ancient and venerable charter.
FERDINAND (the first of Austria, the fifth of Hun-
gary) ceased to be king over the Hungarians so soon
as his duplicity was discovered. FRANCIS JOSEPH
in like manner, supposing he had been elected and
crowned sovereign of Hungary (which he never has
been), would ipso facto have been dethroned by
drawing the sword, and causing his army to cross the
frontier of his German territories. To talk of the
revolt of the Hungarians is consequently to talk
sheer nonsense. As has been said very forcibly and
very admirably by one of our pamphleteers—', Eng-
land would not be in a state of revolt because she
resisted an invasion by King ERNEST (of Hanover),
and the Emperor of AUSTRIA. is, so far as Hungary is
concerned, a mere invader of a foreign and inde-
pendent kingdom." Yet men babble about the
" revolt" of the Hungarians as if the treason Was
a
the side of the Magyars, and not on the side of the Red
Emperor of AUSTRIA !
As striking an analogy exists between the English
revolution of 1688 and the Hungarian revolution of
1848 as between the relative position of England and
Hanover and the relative position of Austria and Hun-
gary. King JAMES the SECOND forfeited his crown
by his interference with the national Constitution.
King FERDINAND the FIFTH (otherwise Emperor of
Austria) forfeited his crown, not only by breaking
the Constitution, hut also, in a more flagrant manner,
by causing his Gcrnym legions to march against the
rightful defenders of that Constitution, the Hungarian
people themselves. JAMES endeavoured to enforce
obedipaos to his perfidy by pitting against the