So doubly returning my thanks for it, I beg leave to state what it is I humbly entreat.

Firstly, when the struggle which is to decide on the freedom of Europe has once broken out, Hungary has resources to carry it on:  but she wants initial aid, because her finances are all grasped by our oppressors.  You would not refuse to me, a houseless exile, alms and commiseration if I begged for myself.  Surely then you cannot refuse it for my bleeding fatherland, when I beg of you, as individuals, trifling sums, such as each can well spare, and the gift of which does not entangle your country in any political obligation.

Whatever may be my personal fate, millions would thank and coming generations bless it as a source of happiness to them, as once the nineteen million francs, 24,000 muskets, and thirty-eight vessels of war which France gave to the cause of your own independence, have been a source of happiness to you.  I rely in that respect upon the republican virtue which your immortal Washington has bequeathed to you in his memorable address to M. Adet, the first French republican minister sent to Washington. “My anxious recollections and my best wishes are irresistibly attracted whensoever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banner of freedom.”

So spoke Washington; and so much for private material aid; to which nothing is required but a little sympathy for an unfortunate people, which even Mr. Clemens may feel, whatever his personal aversion for the man who is pleading not his own, but his brave people’s cause.

As to the political part of my mission, I humbly claim that the United States may pronounce what is or should be the law of nations—­such as they can recognize consistently with the basis upon which their own existence is established, and consistently with their own republican principles.

And what is the principle of such a law of nations, which you as republicans can recognize?  Your greatest man, your first President, Washington himself, has declared in these words:  “Every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it may live most happy, and no government ought to interfere with the internal concerns of another.”

And according to this everlasting principle, proclaimed by your first President, your last President has again proclaimed in his last message to the Congress, that “the United States are forbidden to remain indifferent to a case, in which the strong arm of a foreign power is invoiced to repress the spirit of freedom in any country.”