Then Kossuth, at the urgent request of his friends and, one might say, of the whole country, started a new manuscript newspaper at Budapest, which reported the deliberations of the county assemblies.  The effect produced by this new paper was fraught with even greater consequences than the first had created, for it was instrumental in bringing the counties into contact with one another, thus giving them an opportunity to combine against the Government.  The latter, however, soon prohibited its publication, but the prohibition gave rise to a storm of indignation throughout the whole country.  The counties in solid array addressed protests to the Government against the illegal act and in behalf of Kossuth, who continued to publish the paper in spite of the inhibition.  The Government at last resorted to the most barefaced brutality.  Kossuth, the brave champion of liberty, its eloquent pen and herald, was dragged to a damp and dark subterranean prison-cell in the castle of Buda, and detained there, while his father and mother and his family, who were looking to him solely for their support, were robbed of the aid of their natural protector.

Although at that period lawlessness was the order of the day, yet this last cruel and illegal act of the Government greatly exasperated the public mind, which was already in a ferment of excitement.  But while the excited passions raged throughout the country, the Government, nothing loth, caused Kossuth to be prosecuted for high treason, and, having obtained his conviction, had him sentenced to an imprisonment of three years.  Kossuth applied himself during his detention to serious studies, and acquired also, while in prison, the English language to such an extent that he was enabled to address in that language, during his exile, with great effect and impressiveness, large audiences both in England and in the United States of America.  His imprisonment lasted two long years, after the lapse of which he obtained, in 1840, a pardon in consequence of the repeated and urgent representations of the Diet.

Kossuth returned to the scene of his former activity as the martyr of free speech and the victim to the cause of the nation.  He very soon found a new field in which to labor.  The Government perceived at last that violence was of little avail, and that those questions which were occupying the minds to such a degree could no longer be kept from being publicly discussed by the press.  Kossuth now obtained permission to edit a political daily paper.  Its publication was commenced under the title of Pesti Hirlap ("Newspaper of Pest”) in 1841, and may be said to have created the political daily press of Hungary.  It disseminated new ideas among the masses, stirred up the indifferent to feel an interest in the affairs of the country, and gave a purpose to the national aspirations.  It proclaimed democratic reforms in every department; the abolition of the privileges of the nobility and of their exemption from taxation, equal rights and equal burdens for all the citizens of the State, and the extension of public instruction, and it endeavored to restore the Hungarian nationality to the place it was entitled to claim in the organism of the State.