THE EARLY CAREER OF KOSSUTH.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 691, 17 March 1852, Page 4

THE EARLY CAREER OF KOSSUTH.

[From Frazer's Magazine for November.]

The debates of the Diet of 1833 contain the first public records of a man whose name has since been connected with all political movements in Hungary, and who, from small beginnings, has risen to great power mid dignity. Louis Kossuth's public carter commenced it. the course of that Diet, whose sittings he attended as solici.or and proxy for an absentee. For, although I various ill-advised attempts have been made | by Hungarian and British writers to compare the constitution of Hungary with those usages and observances which in England have limbed the violence of hostile factions, and compelled them, is it were, in spite of private passions, to labour ' for the public good, it will be found, on closer ex- I amination, that the two constitutions are as differ- I ent in their mode of working as in their results. ' In Hungary, the Upper House of the Legisla-I turn, or ‘Board of Magnates,’consisted of the i large landed proprietors and dignitaries of Church and Slate ; it was provided that even the widows

°* magnates, and those whom business, pleasure, V. ... i .tai:v it •^/Tevetrtevr-ii-dirr-aitwuimg’^hU"slTu iY gs" 0 the board, should watch its proceedings by means of a deputy, who took the seat allotted to the absentee, but was not permitted to vote. It appears that the duties of a magnate’s deputy were confined to the watching and reporting the debates for the information of his employer ; for tne functions ol that charge were usually conferred on young or briefless barristers and solicitors, who be sides the emoluments of such a situation, were desirous ot obtaining that information respecting the details and management of public affairs which the great newspapers in England convey to allrankr an I all classes, but which in Hungary, by the want of private or official parliamentary reports, was confined to the few whose privilege it was to watch the proceedings of the two Houses. Among the most serious evils of this system upon the conduct of affairs, were the facilities it afforded to the magnates of slighting their legislative duties, and the amount of superficiality, ill-judged zeal, chicanery, and double dealing which it encouraged. Whatever good effects it had were confined to the training of a few needy and talented youths in the management of public affairs. Of these was Louis Kossuth, the son of a small freeholder and land-steward in the county of Zemplin, who, born in 1806, had just completed his 2/th year when his hereditary poverty and natural gifts attracted the attention of bis father's employer, and procured for him the small stipend of a Parliamentary agent and reporter. Although considerable interest has been excited by later events respecting the early career o a man whom many consider as the prototype of the good and bad qualities of his nation, yet, so blind were the loves and hatreds which clung around him that little or no authentic information has transpired on the subject. But the few facts which can be said to he established show him a gloomy and eccentric boy, and a youth in whom habits of study and application were curiously blended with some less creditable pursuits. His enemies have accused him of intemperance, and of gambling and dishonesty in money matters. His friends, on the contrary, would make the world believe that Louis Kossuth’s youth passed amid the purest and brightest aspirations ; that he remained a stranger to the vices of the age ; and that the dishonesty, intemperance, and immorality of the dominant Austrian faction could never at any time seduce the ascetic severity of his morals or the Catonic rectitude of bis principles. Fiction reigns undisturbed where facts fail, nor is it possible to reclaim the life of the Hungarian Dictator from the extravagant assertions of party romance so long as those who are most likely to know the truth are most interested in concealing it. But there is reason to fear that some parts of Louis Kossutii’s life, such as his alleged embezzlement of public moneys, will always remain debateable ground for biographers and the writers of political memoirs. 1 here is reason to believe that the corps of magnates’ deputies and private reporters of Parliamentary debates at the Presburg Diet of 1833 must have been deficient in style, as well as in a just appreciation of the leading points of the transactions: lor Louis Kossuth had no sooner entered on the functions of his office than the manner and style of his reports attracted the attention of his private friends, and by degrees that of members of the Diet, and others interested in its proceedings. His reports and commentaries on the most important debates were in great requisition, and it was ultimately resolved to print and

circulate them. The manner in which this resolution was carrie 1 out is characteristic of the time and of the people. The magnates and wealthy commoners of Hungary, who recklessly spent their incomes, if not more, in pursuits often discreditable to themselves, and obnoxious to others, were, without an exception, unable to afford the funds for the projected literary undertaking. A small lithographic printing press, was, indeed, purchased, but tlie sum required was collected by a general subscription of the Liberal Opposition. M. Kossuth’s reports, thus multiplied, were published under the title of a Parliamentary Gazelle, and distributed among the subscribers and those country gentlemen who chose to purchase political intelligence at the price of a few shillings per annum. This undertaking, however limited in its extent, exercised a powerful influence on the political development of Hnnjary. Up to that period a general report of the proceedings of the Diet had been published by the Government, but its style, like that of most official productions, was not calculated to make it palatable to the generality of readers. Its guarded language, its equivocations and frequent omissions of facts, and, in short, its edition for an official purpose, made it an object of public suspicion and disgust. The Government reports were, moreover, published with all the slowness which lormerly characterised the opera'ions of the continental press. The publication of official returns in particular, was carried on by fits and starts, and the public were alternately disgusted by an overabundance ora total want of printed papers, ?.[, Kossuth’s reports, published daily after the close of public business, recorded and commented upon the last debates; they came to ham! in single numbers, and while the questions of which they treated were jslill pending, and consequently open to influence front without ; and they were confined to the pith and marrow of the matter before the house. His undertaking was eminently successful, and its influence became soon manifest to those agents of the Government whose duty it was to watch and report on the state of public opinion in Hungary. Ihe most grievous fault of almost all continental Governments in the present century has been their practice of turrcasitig the popularity of their political antagonists by petty persecutions. Though fully as vindictive, they have been less

I courageous than the princes and statesmen of former ages, who never struck a second blow. In Austria and in some other German countries the system of repression by small measures bad been carried to an astonishing and a dangerous perfection, for it was calculated to enlist public sympathy on behalf of its victims. Louis Kossuth, the journalist, was a source of serious annoyance to the Austrian Government, and an injunction was issued to prevent the publication of his reports by means of lithography. The result of this injunction was, that those reports were etpied by a staff of clerks, their language became violent, their price higher, and their cirdilation doubled.

„ After the conclusion of the Diet in 1836 Louis Kossuth, whom experience had taught the benefits of persecution, continued to provoke the Govern- - ■~thtr-transactKmr-«f~t|jir county magistrates of Pestb. Up to that period the King’s Lieutenants in the various counties had succeeded in preventing the publication of the local or County Diets, and, by so doing, they prevented all joint action and co-operation of the various Hungarian districts. Injunction after injunction was I. sued from Vienna, and disregarded by M. Kossuth, who, assured of the protection of the magistrates of Pestb, and glorying tn the attacks of an unpopular Cabinet, continued still further to provoke his opponents to measures of violence. Orders were issued for the arrest of Kossuth ; but the Count Kaviczky, the Chancellor of the Kingdom, refused to sign the necessary warrants. He was removed, and his place given to the Count F. Palffy, who became a willing instrument in the hands of the Cabinet ; and the cities of Buda and Pesth witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a company of Grenadiers, with fixed bayonets, marching to arrest a single and defenceless man. The reason why so strong a force was sent to do the office of constable has never Deen satisfactorily explained. Even at the time it was a question with the witnesses of that exciting scene whether the Cabinet sought to awe the public mind by an imposing display of military force, or whether those in power over-estimated the amount of popularity which their persecution bad gained for M. Kossuth. But, whether from bravado or fear, the result proved that the Austrian ' Government committed a terrible fault, if not a crime, in arresting the Franklin of Zemplin, the salaried clerk of a country gentleman, and the publisher and editor of a small local news- ] paper, with all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of a martial expedition.

The news of this event spread like wildfire throughout Hungary. Petitions, remonstrances, and deputations were sent in from all parts ; and while Kossuth awaited his trial in the ‘ New Prison’ of Pesth, ;;is name became the watchword of the Opposition, and his future liberation was considered as the rallying point of the wildest hopes. Nor could this gigantic popularity be lessened by the arrest of other Liberals, although these later victims were more conspicuous, some by birth, and some by a longer and more active public career. The Count Raday, Madaraz, Ujhazy, B. Wesseleneyi, and Balogh shared the journalist’s fate, and were arraigned with him before the same tribunal. The sentence against Wesseleneyi and Kossuth condemned them to three years’ imprisonment ‘for having disobeyed the King s orders. *1 his sentence appears extremely mild, if compared with the long terms of imprisonment which the Austrian judges are in the habit pronouncing against those whom their Government has cause to fear or hate. But, so great are the horrors of an Austrian state prison —which the experience of later years shows have been truthfully described by Silvio Pellico and o.hcr Italian convicts—that even the confinement of a few months sufficed to affect the health of body au 1 mind of many unfortunate men who were consigned to them. When, after two years’ confinement, the menacing attitude of the Hungarian counties induced the Cabinet of Vienna to conciliate the public animosity by the publication of an amnesty, M. Kossuth left his cell in the fortress of Buda broken in health and exasperated to the last degree. “My fate rests in God’s hands,” said he at a later period ; “it is His to consign me to suffering, to exile, or to the block ; but even His power shall never again make me subject to the Hapsburg dynasty.”

It is strangely characteristic of the Austrian Government that, after taising M. Kossuth from his obscurity to the eminence of a political antagonist, and after giving him bodily proofs of their cruelly and vindictiveness, they should at length, in the eleventh hour, have sought to gain him over to their party. Their measures to that effect were ns petty and awkward as their former persecutions. If the liberated convict bad been left to staive or live on the bounty of hts f.iends, his very poverty would have ruined his independence and confined his energy. If he had beenap. pointed to an important and lucrative office, his patriotism would have been suspected and his condition envied by those who could not iiope for an equal amount of good fortune. Ibe Cabinet of Vienna, impelled by a strange fatality, chose a middle course between the two expedients. They sought to conciliate their enemy by granting a license for a newspaper, the Pesti Hirlvp, and they consented to Kossuth taking its management. Nothing could have been more advantageous for a man of almost feminine softness, vanity, indolence, and irascibility, such as he proved to be, than to be thus thrown on bis own resources, and compelled to come again before the public, with the reminiscences cf a victim and the glory of a martyr. From that lime forward Louis Kossuth took his place among the leaders cf the Opposition. At the election of the Diet of 1840 and 1845 the Government did indeed succeed in preventing bis return as a member of the Lower House, or Board of Estates ; but his influence grew apace, and when the Diet of 1847 opened the Opposition had obtained a signal triumph in the elections, and M. Kossuth took his seat as a member for the county of Pesth.