The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-24 00:00:00

[PRICE SD.

LOUIS KOSSUTH

Frorn
itsheoneNe;
Louis Kossuth •
SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THIS DISTIN-
GUISHEDthYeorgIt
great men
HUNGARIAN PATRIOT.
men of the day.
Like Washington, Napoleon, Charles the Twelfth,
Fre • derick the Great, Alexander, he fills brilliant
page in history
than but more like Washingtona the
others named, Kossuth
occupies the heart of the re-
publican world. We give
a sketch of his life. Our
authorities, however, are Austrian—
blt r malignant,
and vindictive against the patriot 1e
it
u with the
sting and the venom extracted, we
believe.. we have
furnished our readers with a pretty fair biography of
the man.
Kossuth is in his 45th year. lie was born in the
county of Zemplin, in 1806. His father was a lawyer,
and a small landowner, of the noble class, at Ujeel
in the comitat of Zemplin, a member of the AugYs:
burg Confession. His possessions being limited to a
few acres of vineyard and arable land, did not
admit of much expense on the education of his
children. He found means, indeed, to place
his son Louis in the College f Scharaschpatack, a
Protestant institution in the neighbourhood. With
this aid he prepared himself for the profession of
an advocate. After obtaining his diploma he be-
came agent to a Countess Szapary. The influ-
ence which he derived from this position, and from
the relations which he had established at college
with the nobe classes of the district, gave him some
weight in the assembly of the comitat, in which
the noble proprietors and official dignitaries are ac-
customed to meet together from four to six times in
the year, for the management of local affairs, the ex-
ecution of Government decrees, &c. In these as-
semblies the principal influence naturally devolves
on the holders of civil offices, and on those who, by
their oratory, influence the elections to those offices.
After the lapse of several years, Kossuth closed his
accounts with the Countess Szapary, and, in hopes
,of
a larger field for the practice of the law, removed
to Pesth. Here he found the chances of advance-
ment in the legal profession cut off by the number
of established competitors, and in the year 1822
he betook himself to Presburg as the abelgat or
representative in the Hungarian Diet of an absent
magnate, in which capacity he enjoyed a resi-
dence rent-free, a seat at the lower table, and a right
of speaking, but not of voting, in all which particulars
his position was exactly that of some 300 similar re-
presentatives of absentee noblemen, most of whom
were likewise educated for the law. At the com-
mencement of the proceedings of this Diet Kossuth,
it is said, once assayed to speak ; but as if abashed at
his presumption in the presence of the older and more
experienced heads around him, he desisted, and fell
back upon the idea of setting on foot a journal, to be
devoted to the proceedings of the Diet, and specially
to the publication of the discussions in the sittings of
the circles, so-called, of which no printed protocol
had ever yet appeared. These sittings were, in fact,
held by the Government to be merely conferences of
the deputies, at which subjects were discussed, not
under the presidence of a deputy of the Government,
but under that of members, who were changed every,
week, and merely as a preparation for ulterior dis-
cussion in the Diet proper, the diary of which was
printed. This preparatory discussion did, how-
ever, in truth, involve the pith of the proceedings
of the Diet, for, conducted under the supervision of
a popular audience, unchecked by the presidence
of a Government official, it laid the ground for the
constant preponderance of the party which enjoyed
the favour of the people. The effect, indeed, upon
the deputies present was not immediate with respect
to the decision of questions at issue, for the deputies
were strictly bourid by the instructions furnished to
them by their constituents. The comitats received
once or twice a month from their respective deputies
official reports of proceedings, and were very gene-
rally guided in their further instructions by the tone
of these reports, and the manner in which the various
proposals of the popular or opposition party was com-
mented upon in them. These reports were read in
the comitat assemblies, and those who had a seat in
the latter thus obtained a knowledge of the speeches
delivered in the Diet, but the public at large had little
or no information of them.

This state of things Kossuth determined to turn
to the account of the opposition. With funds con-
tributed by some of the deputies, he procured a
lithographic press, with the view of disseminating
his journal at as cheap a rate as possible, though
not without some profit to himself, through all the
comitats. The experiment took with the people ;
but the Austrian spies became alarmed, and soon
the Central Government ordered the paper to be sup-
pressed. Kossuth's party in the Diet resisted. It
would not do to put down the Liberal journal, and
the matter was compromised by buying out the press.
But this did not stop the paper. It was published in
manuscript, and though the price was raised of ne-
cessity, the experiment still succeeded. The price
was indeed raised to six florins for the monthly
amount of the journal, of which one or two sheets
were issued twice a week; the number of readers de-
creased, but still each comitat was a customer for
from one to six copies. In the towns several societies
paid in advance, and many deputies contributed in-
dividually, for it was found that the speeches of sub-
scribers and benefactors were improved and enriched
under Kossuth's treatment, and reputation and popu-
larity flowed from his pen. The enterprise was alto-
gether a bit, and Kossuth soon arrived not only at
covering his expenses, but at some consideration in a
country of which he influenced with a progressive
force the representative body, their discussions, and
their decisions ; while, at the same time, be acquired
numerous followers, in a body of young copyists, who
remained in after times his zealous adherents.

With the close of the Diet, after a session of four
years, in the year 183 G, these sources of Kossuth's
influence and prosperity were dried up, and he
betook himself to reporting the proceedings of the
comitat assemblies, which were communicated by
' local reporters, and distributed once more, in a
lithographic shape, among numerous subscribers at
Pestb.

The Government again became alarmed, and made
several ineffectual attempts to suppress the ob-
noxious journal ; but still it continued to report a
series of eloquent harangues upon the legal questions
which now agitated the whole country, and his own
speeches in the Assembly trangressed all limits of the
respect considered to be due to the Sovereign. The
Palatine at last received an instruction to seize the
press at the comitat House of Assembly, to arrest
Kossuth himself, and proceed against him on a charge
of high treason. In consequence of the illness of the
Archduke Palatine the execution of this order de-
volved upon the Chief Judiciary, the Count Cyraky,
and the Crown Fiscal, Fejesch, with a company of
grenadiers, arrested Kossuth at his residence, in the
Ofner-hills, in April, 1837. His papers also
were seized, and among them many important
letters from Deputies of the Opposition, of
which, however, no further notice was taken. Kos-
suth's defence was conducted by the Baron Nicholas
Wesseleny, who was himself under a similar accusa-
tion, founded on expressions against the King,
which, in his zeal for the dissolution of all bonds of

loyalty, he bad made use of in the Assembly of the
Szathmar Comitat. In his case his personal liberty
was not affected, as, by the law of Hungary, a cer-

tain amount of property is considered as surety
against the escape of an accused party. Kossuth,
having no property, was not exempt from personal
durance. Several young people, who had followed
Kossuth's lead in the agitation of their comitats,
were also arrested on charges of high treason He
himself was conveyed to the fortress of Olen, where
he was allowed books, writing materials, and news.
papers, and a daily walk on the
whtastions with an
h
officer. Here he devoted himself much appli-
cation to political studies, and to that of the French
language, and it was at this period that
country
maximsgathered
from the republicanliterature of that Co
and principles which ineradicably fixed his own opinions.
It was here that the dream of Hungarian indepen-
dence rose upon his imagination—that the idea of
revenge upon Austria for the wrongs
h
country had endured was engendered. Itwwaischabohnits
this time that the relation commenced which resulted
in his subsequent marriage with the daughter of a
noble of Stuhlweissenburg, Wesseleny—a lady who,
inspired with admiration for his political exertions,
sent him books and exchanged letters with him in
his captivity. They
in were married soon after his libe-
ration,lB4l. The sanction of the Romish Church
was obtained for this mixed marriage with difficulty,
and it was celebrated by a Protestant clergyman.
The proceeding for high treason ended in 1839, with
a sentence to four years' imprisonment. Wesseleny
was condemned to the same. The connexion between
these two was cemented by equality in suffering, and
the halo of patriotism which attached to them both.
In this year, 1839, the Hungarian Diet assembled,
and had to deal with a demand from Government for
18,000 recruits. The opposition, or popular party,
turned to account the popular excitement produced
by the sentences against Kossuth and his associates,
in order to procure the election of deputies pledged
to attach to this levy of men the condition of a gn
rat amnesty, and various other concessions. The
s.
liberation of the prisoners was naturally a very
popular question, but, in the eyes of men anxious for
the authority and consideration of the Government,
pregnant With serious consecNences. The leaders of