The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-18 00:00:00

LECTURE BY M. KOSSUTH.

On Monday night a numerous audience assem
bled in the Music-hall, Edinburgh, to hear a lec-
ture from M. Kossuth, on " Hungary 'in connec-
tion with the condition and general interests of
Europe." The chair was occupied by Mr. Charles
Cowan, M.P. ; and among the gentlemen on the
platform were Dr. Schmitz, Colonel Lichensteins,
Count Ibaz, the Rev. Dr. Hanna ; Councillors
Fyfe, Girle, Wood, and Dick, Mr. Gorrie, advo-
vocate ; Mr. Lorimer, advocate ; Mr. Thos. Knox,
Mr. M'Callum, Mr. Harrison, Bailie M‘Gregor, of
Glasgow, Robert Rae, Esq., of Glasgow.
Mr. COWAN said it had always been, and he
trusted it would ever be, the glory of Great Bri-
tain that her shores, when once reached by those
who were objects X dread and hatred to the
tyrants of the earth, were an ark of refuge, which
she was resolved, at all hazards and against all
consequences to maintain. (Cheers.) It must be
especially interesting to those who had sprung
from the same land to which Wallace and Bruce,
and a multitude of other worthies and martyrs had
belonged, to receive with cordial sympathy and
give a hearty welcome to a like-minded spirit—
one of the nobles of the earth—(cheers)—and,
though the present meeting had no political ob-
ject, he ventured to express his own sentiments
that he believed that, had it not been that his dis-
tinguished friend (he would not say distinguished
stranger) had been deserted by false friends, and
overreached by the wiles and machinations of a
secret diplomacy, he would long ere now have
achieved the object of his heart—the emancipation
and independence of his beloved fatherland. (Loud
cheers.) He (Mr. Cowan) was sure that the citi-
zens of Edinburgh and the whole country, in
memory.of those heroes of our own fatherland,
would give to his Excellency Louis Kossuth, as on
former occasions, a most cordial welcome. (Enthu-
siastic cheering, waving of hats and handkerchiefs.)
M. KOSSUTH, on rising, was received with tre-
mendous cheering, again aad again renewed. After
felicitously expressing his great obligations to the
meeting for their presence, M. Kossuth proceeded
to say that Hungary in the lith and 18th centu-
ries had been lad prostrate under a foreign yoke,
and that singularly enough the duration of. her
prostration at both periods lasted precisely ten
years. The same ominous ten years were being
again rapidly completed, since the date of her last
prostration, and he trusted that the spirit of their
fathers still animated the present descendants of
Hungary, and that rising in their moral might
they would declare that their bitter degradation
would last nolonger. (Cheers.) Unhappily their
fatherland was still oppressed, and, he believed, we
might as well attempt to make a blackamoor white
as endeavour by any moral means to bring the
House of Hapsburg to any serious conviction of
their duty. In his present lecture heproposed to re-
move certain mists of misrepresentation which sur-
rounded the history and position of Hungary, that
his audience might thereby, be the better enabled
to understand and realise the great—the European
—importance of the Hungarian cause. M. Kossuth
then entered into a variety of interesting details re-
lative to the political condition of Hungary previ-
ous to the movement of 1848 and since the destruc-
tion of the people's liberties. Of the future, he said
—" The fog and smoke of Downing-street are not
particularly favourable to clear sight. It is fashion
there to profess that it is good to prop the existence
and cultivate the alliance of the house of Austria,
because the integrity of the Austrian dominions is
useful, is necessary to England. Useful, necessary.
What does that mean ? It cannot mean that it is
advantageous to your coMmerciil interest. You
have very little commerce -\vith the Austrian em-
pire. With a free_Hungary, 'free Italy,. your com-
merce is sure to be ten times as -extensive. Then
why useful ? Why necessary ? Evidently they
think of the emergency, of the-war with Russia or
with France, and imagine that Austria will be a
useful ally. Will she ? Why, sir, as to a war
with Russia, how far you may rely. on Austria for
such an emergency, you had occasion to learn in
your late war. The words I spoke on that occasion
have been fully confirmed by subsequent facts. I
say now as I said then—Austria can never prove a
true and useful ally to Great Britain against. Russia.
She will only clog your wheels, fetter your hands,
distance the conflict from the vulnerable points of
RuSsia, in order to distance it from her own fron-
tiers ; but help you to reduce Russia to proper
limits she never will, she never can dare. And
why not ? The answer to this question is to be
found in the famous instruction of Czar Alexander
1., to Admiral Teitsakoff, " Should Austria really
dare to play false with me, you are herewith autho-
rised to invite in my name the Sclavonic popula-
tion of her empire to rise and give their assistance;
and where will Austria be ?" There is the mystery.
Conclude on the future by reflecting how different
would have been both the course and the result of
your. late war, if, instead of faithless Austria, afree
and independent Hungary had stood on your
flanks. And hencndge what can be of greater
use to you--a free Hungary, whom every interest
will prompt to assist you in the emergency of a
Russian war, or Austria—" the little valiant, the
ever strong upon the stronger side," who, like a
professional gamester, lives only by playing fast
and loose. As to the emergency of a war with
France, a great truth may be told in a few words.
In any war in which France shall stand on the ono
side, and Great Britain with Austria on the other,
France has but to advance towards the Austrian
frontiers and say, " Here we are to assist you,
Italy, Hungary, Crotia, Gallicia, Bohemia ; rise
and be free ; ' and so far from deriving any strength
from an Austrian alliance, you shall have given
to your antagonist ten nations for allies; most of
whom well know how to fight, and can muster
armies by hundreds of thousands of men. How
different the prospect if the unnatural compound of
hetrogeneous elements, formed by a long series of
usurpations, called Austria, good for nothing on
earth except to perpetuate servitude, shall have
ceased to exist, replaced by a coalition of free na-
tions holding together from community of interests,
neither ambitious themselves, nor ready tools of any
ambition on earth, but guardians of peace, because
strong and happy and free. Please reflect on this ;
the subject is worth while to reflect upon. The hour
passes fast. What to-day is anticipated may to-mor-
row become reality. Happily the British people is
awakening fast to a proper perception of the neces-
sity to watch the manoeuvres of secret diplomacy ;
and the independent liberals, those worthy patriots
who don't care a bit about party scramblers for
office, but care much about conscientiously perform-
ing their duty to their country, are manifestly
acquiring day by day more and more weight in
Parliament. This augurs well for the future. You
have followed our past struggle with a brother's
interest, have rejoiced at our successes, and have
mourned over our fall with a brother's love. 0,
nurse that interest ! 0, do not withdraw that love!
The cause which has occupied your attention this
evening has a future . yet—it may be an earlier
future than some of you might think. I throw my-
self on the British people's sense of justice and
watchfulness, to guard that cause in eventful emer-
gencies from a repetition of the fatal errors of it
fatal policy, from which we, and with us the Euro-
pean family of nations, have suffered and still suffer
so much. We, plain sons of nature, we are a grate-
ful race, sir ; and who can tell, maybe, that to have
secured the well-deserved affection of a grateful
nation may yet prove to be a safer stock laid up
for trying emergencies than the precarious alliance
of an ambitious ' mortal, who one day coaxes you,
another day builds a standing menace against you-;
and while in his hypocritic ardour of friendship he
invites your Queen to grace with-her presence the
inauguration of- his Sebastopol, built against the
country of his invited guest, he at the same time
takes care to revive rankling recollections, and stirs
up new flames, and pokes and feeds the here-
ditary hatred of his nation against you that he
may have it prepared for possible emergencies, or
should occasion liner, or should his heart fail him
to touch you himself, he should at least leave you
the legacy of revived hatred, and implant the thirst
after your humiliation into the impressiOnable cha-
racter of the nation over whom the evil genius of
this dark decennium gave him power to rule for a
span of years. Ladies and gentlemen, I have done
with this evening's task, Some of my words, if on
the wings of British publicity they chance to find
their way to distant lands, may prove a seed which
it was worth while to strew. And who can tell

but, when the future shall have assumed the shape

•
of a stirring present, the reviving recollection of
this evening may yet help to call forth a timely
spark of British sympathy ? And the sympathy of
the British people, if expressed not too late, is a
fact in itself of mighty import. I wish we had
heard of your sympathy nine years ago. But, se-
cluded as we were, we only thought that, if the
eyes of the outward world followed with some con-
cern our arms uplifted in mortal combat, it was but
like the concern with which the crowded benches

of the Roman amphitheatre looked down on the
gladiators in the arena beloW. And we felt lonely,
so lonely as the last Numantian may have felt be-
fore he threw himself on the funeral pile. Next
time it may be otherwise. And could I hope that
a faint recollection of this evening may yet contri-
bute towards preserving the germ of sympathy for
times, may be lingering to come, but sure to come,
I should bless the hour when we thus met."

M. Kossuth sat down amid a thunder of ap-
plause, and during the course of the delivery of his
lecture he was frequently interrupted with loud
and long-continued cheers.
A vote of thanks to the lecturer, proposed by Mr.
COWAN, was ver7 enthusiastically accorded; and
the meeting terminated with a vote of thanks to
the chairman.