The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-26 00:00:00

THE KOSSUTH NOTES.

The following affidavit has been sworn in Chan-
cery in the suit between Francis Joseph, Emperor
of :Austria, and King of Hungary and Bohemia,
plaintiff, and William Day, John Day, Joseph Day,
and Louis Kossuth, defendants:—
" I, 'Louis Kossuth, now residing in Bedford-
place, near to Russell-square, in the county of Mid-
dlesex, make oath and say :
I, 1. I am by birth a Hungarian noble, of the
county of Z emplen, in the kingdom of Hungary.
When Ferdinand V., formerly King of Hungary,
ceased to be King of Hungary, and the throne was
thereby vacant, I was, by the lawfully summoned
and duly constituted Estates of Hungary, consist-
ing of both Houses in National Diet assembled, on
the 14th day of April, 1849, appointed and named
to be a Governor-President, until the Diet should
have adopted a permanent settlement for the Go-
vernment of the kingdom ; and, on the 19th day o. f
April, I took, in the presence of the said Diet, in
the Great Reformed Church of Debreczen, the
solemn oath appointed by the Diet to be taken by
me as such Governor-President, and then swore
that I would be true and faithful to the
.authority
and functions that had been vested in me by
the said Diet. The said appointment and nomi-
nation, and the authority and functions thereby
vested in me, have never been revoked or super-
seded ; nor has any other appointment or nomina-
tion been since made ; nor has any person, ever
since Ferdinand V. ceased to be King of Hungary,
been called to fill the throne of Hungary, or been
accepted or crowned as King of Hungary, by the
said Estates of Hungary, to whom alone the power
belongs, by the fundamental laws of Hungary, to
do any of these acts.
4, 2. The plaintiff in this suit is not and never
has been King of Hungary, either de jure or de
facto. He is not King of Hungary de jure, inas-
much as the succession to the throne of Hungary is
a matter of strict settlement under the fundamental
laws of Hungary ; and the claim to the succession
can only arise after the death of the last King. But
the last King, Ferdinand V., still lives. Moreover,
in conformity with the 2d Article of the Act of the
Diet of 1723, by which alone the present house of
Hapsburg-Lorraine was accepted by the Estates of
Hungary as having, under the conditions therein
named, a lawful and thereby established order of
succession to the throne of Hungary, the right of
succession can only devolve on the next heir of the
last King. But the present Emperor of Austria is
not the next heir of Ferdinand V., the last King of
Hungary, were not that King himself, as in fact
he is, still living. The plaintiff is not the King of
Hungary de facto, inasmuch as by the fundamental
laws of Hungary, which all the last 14 Kings of
Hungary have successively sworn shall be observed,
in every point and article, by themselves and their
successors, no one can be King de facto unless and
until he has been lawfully crowned as King within
the kingdom of Hungary, and he must be thus
crowned within six months after the day of the
death of a deceased King. And it is particularly
declared by the said fundamental laws of Hungary
that all the nobles of the kingdom are members of
the Sacred Crown of Hungary, and that they arc
subject to no one except to a lawfully orowned King.
"3. The plaintiff, falsely called in the said bill
of complaint in this cause King of Hungary,'
has not, and never has had, the sole and exclu-
sive privilege of authorising the issue in Hungary
of notes for payment of money, to be circulated
in that country as money. Were the plaintiff
King of Hungary, which he is not, he would not,
without the consent of the Diet, possess this
privilege and authority. And not only have this
privilege and authority never been granted by
the Estates of Hungary to any King of Hungary,
but the Estates of Hungary have formally recorded
their denial and protest that the King can issue
notes of his own authority. The only person to
whom the Estates of Hungary, in National Diet
assembled, have ever granted the power and autho-
rity to issue notes for the payment of money, to be
circulated in that country as money, and the only
person who has ever possessed lawful power to issue
or to authorise the issue of such notes, has been
myself ; to whom, while I was, in the year 1848,
responsible Minister of Finance to the then King
Ferdinand V., the power to issue such notes was
then given by the Estates of the Kingdom in Na-
tional Diet assembled, and to whom, after I had
been appointed, named, and sworn as Governor-
President of Hungary in 1849, power to authorise
the issue of such notes was then again given by the
Estates of the Kingdom in National Diet assembled,
to meet the emergencies that then existed.
"4. The plaintiff, falsely called in the said bill
King of Hungary,' has not, and never has had,
the sole and exclusive privilege of authorising to
be affixed to any document intended to be published
or circulated in Hungary, the national arms in the
said bill, erroneously called the Royal arms of that
country. Were the plaintiff King of Hungary,
which he is not, he would not possess this privilege
and authority. There do not now exist, and never
have existed any Royal arms of Hungary. The
Crown of Hungary, which must be deemed the most
important part of the arms of Hungary, is the pro-
perty of the nation and not of the King, even
though he be a lawfully crowned King. It is
expressly declared, by the fundamental laws of
Hungary, that every noble is a member of the
Sacred Crown of Hungary; and I, whom am
a noble of Hungary, have an absolute and
hereditary share in those rights of the nation of
which the Crown has always been taken to be the
symbol. It is even required, by the fundamental
laws of the kingdom, which all the last 14 kings of
Hungary (that is to say, all those of Hapsburg race)
have sworn to observe and keep, that persons shall
be chosen by the Estates of the nation, who shall
have the keeping of the Crown itself, and this
within the Kingdom of Hungary. The other part
of the device engraved upon the said note, and the
whole of which is in the said bill falsely called ' the
Royal arms,' •consists of the shield of the national
emblem or arms. But neither the use of this emblem
nor the authorisation of the use of it is in any sense
or manner the exclusive privilege of the King of
Hungary, did there now exist a King of Hungary,
which there does not. The use of this emblem is

not only the right of every Hungarian, but the use
of it is, in point of fact, common and habitual with
men of all classes in Hungary, and it is daily used
and put by them upon published newspapers and
other articles of all sorts publicly exhibited for sale.
And this is done in strict conformity with the laws
and the records of the kingdom of Hungary, which,
throughout and invariably, speak of '.Regni Corona'
and Regni insigne,' never of Regis Corona' or
' _Regis Insigne.'
" 5. And I say that, in the notes complained of in
the plaintiff's said bill, the said national emblem
and crown, in the bill erroneously called the Royal
arms, are merely introduced into the ornamental
border which surrounds the notes, as the well-known
national emblem, but not for the purpose of in any
respect giving authenticity to such notes.
"6. The notes in the said bill mentioned, and
therein falsely called spurious notes,' do not
purport to be anything else than what is stated in
words upon the !face of them. They have no re-
semblance whatever to any other notes mentioned
in the said bill.

" 7. It is not true, but it is wholly and entirely
contrary to the truth, that I have intended, as soon
as I receive the notes falsely in the said bill called
' spurious notes,' to send them to Hungary, and to
sell some of them for divers sums of money to any
persons resident there or elsewhere, and by this
and other means to introduce the same into circu-
lation in Hungary. My intentions could not be
known to the plaintiff, or to Rudolph Count Ap-
ponyi, his ambassador in England. I affirm and
declare the faet to be, that the present state of
Europe and of the Austrian Government being
such as to make the happening of great changes in
the relations of lawful right and the dominion of
force seem not only possible but probable, I deemed
it to be my duty to take such means as I was able
to meet such an emergency as might thus probably
arise, and to prevent the State and subjects of Hun-
gary from suffering the detriment that would ne-
cessarily follow from the want of sufficient means
of circulation as money, and I have accordingly had
the notes in the said bill named prepared and
made ready, but had already, before the filing of
the said bill, made provision for their safe keeping
in England until the happening of the emergency
-which could alone make use of them to Hungary to
be consistent with events. And I affirm and de-
clare, that I neither have attempted nor have ever
had the attention to attempt, to introduce the said
falsely
n in the said bill called ' spurious notes '
into
forcible groar7' so long as the present condition of
calls ,
revolution,'
exists there. What the plaintiff
restoration or 1' but which will, in fact, be the
must itself have 'laws and rights of Hungary,
notes in the said happenedbill
in Hungary before the
of which the named can acquire the value
through their plaintiffcirculation expresses so much fear
gary. ion in the kingdom of Hun-
t' 8. Detriment to the State and to the subjects
of Hungary cannot therefore be caused by the
making of the said notes, or
cnyn.their introduc-
tion Hungary. On theany
intotreeiryrnsn,unabtsh.Lsnaeiad,
notes could only, under
be the means of relief to the State and
Hungary from the, great loss and detrimentiewcthsi ofh
the said State ane. subjects have already suffered
through acts done iii the name and on the part of
the plaintiff. When: I wa.9 Minister of Finance to
King Ferdinand V., and it was known that I wa,,
about, in that capacity, to arrange for the issue of
some notes upon the, credit of a metallic basis, the
National Bank of A aatria, Which is named in the

said bill, sent one of its directors, the late Baron
Sina, to me at Pesth, to beg me not to make arrange-
ments for the issue of such notes and offering me,
in my official capaoity, a loan of from 10,000,000fi.
to 12,000,0001, without interest, and such further
sums as the exigencies of Hungary might require,
if I would consent not to agree to the issue o£ any
notes until the time of the expiration of the privi-
leges which the said bank had from the Emperor of
Austria, as such, and not as King of Hungary. I
rejected' the offer, upon the ground that Hungary
had nothing to do with the privileges of the National
Bank of Austria. I reported the facts to the Diet,
which approved of the course I had taken. These
notes were accordingly issued upon the security of
a metallic basis which, to the amount of several mil-
lions of florins in silver, was deposited by me in the
Commercial Bank of Hungary at Pesth. The Diet
afterwards authorised me, as beforesaid, to issue notes
upon the credit of the State; and such notes were
issued in the autumn of 1848, and again, under the
separate authorisation beforementioned in the spring
of 1849. But these notes differed from those in the
said bill mentioned, inasmuch as they bore a date
and number in writing, and my official signature
as Minister of Finance, or otherwise ; while the
present notes bear no date, have a number in
print, and have no official title after my name, but
the words ' in the name of the nation' are put before
my name. When an Austrian army invaded the
kingdom of Hungary, by direction of the plaintiff,
early in 1849, and it was deemed advisable that the
seat of Government should be removed for a time
to Debreczin, I did not take with me the silver
which had been deposited by me in the Bank at
Pesth as the metallic basis and security for the
notes first above-named, because I supposed that
this, not being the property of any individuals, but
only of the nation, would be deemed sacred. The
invading army, however, took possession of the
whole of the silver thus deposited ; and afterwards
all the three sets of notes which had been issued by
me, or in my name, with the sanction and under the
direct authority of the Estates of the Kingdom,
were first declared valueless for public purposes,
and afterwards ordered, by the generals and others
acting in the name of the plaintiff, to be given up
by the holders; and, in point of fact, a very large
quantity of the said notes, amounting in the whole
to more than thirty millions of florins in denomina-
tional value, were actually afterwards confiscated,
whereby the holders thereof were unlawfully, and
by force, deprived of their property and of the fruits
of their honest labour and earnings.
" 9. In consequence of the heavy detriment and
loss thus suffered by the State and subjects of Hun-
gary, I have deemed it my duty to take such means
as will enable the equivalent of the confiscated notes
to be restored to those from whom they have as
aforesaid been forcibly confiscated, should the cir-
cumstances arise that will enable redress to be
given for the forcible wrong thus done to a very
large number of the persons and to so large an
amount of property in Hungary.
" 10. My life and actions are before the world ;
and it has been my wish and care never to do any
act in England which is, or could be deemed to be,
an infringement of the laws of England.
" Sworn, &c., March 16. " Louis KOSSUTH."