“Now, sir, M. Kossuth either did write that document, or he did not. If he did, and you have published it without his authorisation, you have committed, by all the laws of honour in this land, a dishonourable act. If he did not write it, you have committed, by the laws of justice in this land, a criminal act. I charge you with the committal of both. You are guilty of the latter; and the latter, like a parenthesis, embraces the former.
“You have published that document without any authorisation from the man whose name is subscribed to it; and upon the day following, in an additional article, you have declared its authenticity, as a proclamation addressed by M. Kossuth, from Bayswater, for the purpose of engaging the Lombard and Hungarian patriots in the late insurrection at Milan.
“As such, sir, in the name of M. Kossuth, I disavow the document. I pronounce it to be a forgery.
“It remains with M. Kossuth to bring you before the bar of the law. It has become my duty to arraign you before the tribunal of public opinion.
“I charge you, then, with having given utterance to a forged document, which was calculated to reflect with a damning influence upon the fame of its reputed author. Such conduct is in any case culpable. In yours it is inexcusable, since you daily tell us that ‘whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer.’
“But this is not all, sir. In the editorial referred to, you take occasion to speak of the man whose name has been thus abused in a tirade of vengeful invective, whose epithets I, as a gentleman, shall not condescend to reproduce.
“Calling the false proclamation ‘bombastic fustian,’ you have charged M. Kossuth with aiding to incite the late insurrection in Milan, and thereby causing the wanton shedding of blood—of ‘hallooing on the wretched victims to certain destruction, while he himself enjoys the most perfect personal security under the guardianship of British law.’
“This is a serious charge, and, if not true, a slander which, by the mildest construction, must be termed most cruel and atrocious. It is not true. It is a slander, and I feel confident that all who read will pronounce it, as I have done, cruel and atrocious.
“With regard to its first clause, I here affirm that M. Kossuth had not only no part in inciting the Italians to a revolution at this time; but, that up to the latest moment, he opposed such an ill-judged and premature movement with all the might of his counsel. He had weighty reasons for so doing. Perhaps you, sir, may know what these ‘weighty reasons’ are; but whether you do or not, I am not going to declare them for the benefit of Austrian ears. This is not the question now, but your charge is; to which I oppose the affirmation that it is not true. With regard to the latter clause of your quoted assertion, I have thus to answer; that the moment in which M. Kossuth received the news of the insurrection in Milan—and which came upon him as unexpectedly as upon any man in England—upon that moment he hurried to make preparation for his departure to the scene of action. Although filled with a prophetic apprehension that the affair would turn out to be an émeute, and not a national revolution, he, nevertheless, resolved to fling his body into the struggle. I, who was to have had the honour of sharing his dangers, can bear testimony to the zeal with which he was hurrying to face them, when he was frustrated by the news that the insurrection was crushed. Were I to detail, as I may one day be called upon to do, the sacrifices which he made to effect that object, the slanders, sir, which you have uttered against him would recoil still more bitterly upon yourself. For the present I content myself with the assertion of the fact; but should you render it necessary I am ready with the proofs.
“But no such explanation was needed to shield Louis Kossuth from your unmanly accusation. Shall I recall a circumstance in the life of that heroic man to refute you? You, sir, must know it well. It has been recorded in the columns, and engraven in the tablets, of history. In August, 1849, upon the banks of the Danube stood Louis Kossuth. On one side was the avenging Austrian, thirsting for his blood; on the other his weak and wavering protector, who had declared that unless he—Kossuth—and his associates would consent to abandon the religion of their fathers they must be yielded up, to what? On the part of Kossuth, to death—certain death—upon the ignominious scaffold. In this perilous crisis, others, less compromised, accepted life upon the terms proposed. What did Kossuth, when it came to his turn to speak? He uttered these words of glory: ‘Death, death upon the scaffold, in preference to such terms for life! Accursed be the tongue that could make to me such an infamous proposal.’