London, January 17, 1852.
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Appendix II.—Extracts from a Letter to the 'Times,' dated December 9th, 1851, by Bartholomew Szemere, late Minister of the Interior in Hungary; in answer to Prince Esterhazy.
I shall now proceed to give a succinct account of what took place from April 14, when the new acts received the Royal sanction, to December, 1848. You may be assured that I shall conceal nothing that tended to change the relations between Hungary and Austria.
The Prime Minister was already nominated when Jellachich was raised to the dignity of Ban of Croatia by a Royal decree which the Premier was not even asked to countersign. The Hungarian ministers, nevertheless, for the sake of peace, overlooked this irregular proceeding.
By a decree, dated June 10, 1848, the King made known to all whom it might concern, that all the troops stationed within the kingdom of Hungary, whether Hungarians or Austrians, were placed under the orders of the Hungarian Minister of War, and that all the Hungarian fortresses were under the jurisdiction of the said Minister. Yet at this very time officers of the Imperial and Royal army were taking an active part in the rebellion of the Serbs and Valachs, while General Mayerhofer was enlisting recruits in the principality of Servia, and sending them to assist the rebels. The people thus beheld with astonishment civil war break out, and saw with still greater astonishment that Imperial officers were fighting on both sides.
Jellachich, as a functionary of the Hungarian Crown, refused to obey the Hungarian ministry, and illegally summoned a Croatian Diet to meet at Agram on June 5. In consequence of these proceedings, Ferdinand V., by a decree dated June 10, 1848, deprived him, as a rebel, of all his civil and military offices and dignities, but at the same time sent him, through his Minister of War, Latour, field officers, artillery and ammunition.
The troubles increased daily. The Hungarian ministry requested the Archduke John to act us mediator. He accepted the office, but did nothing.
The Diet met on July 2. The Palatine, as the representative of the Sovereign in the speech from the Throne, said that, as several districts were in a state of open rebellion, the principal objects to which, in the name of His Majesty, he should direct the attention of the Diet were the finances and the defences of the country, and that bills relating to these objects would be brought in by the Ministers. He then proceeded as follows:—"His Majesty has learned with painful feelings, that although he only followed the dictates of his own gracious inclination, when, at the request of the faithful Hungarian people, he gave his sovereign sanction to the laws enacted by the last Diet—laws which the common weal, according to the exigencies of the present age, rendered imperatively necessary—there are, nevertheless, a number of seditious agitators, especially in the annexed territories and the Hungarian districts of the Lower Danube, who, by false reports and terrorism, have excited the different religious sects and races speaking different languages against each other, and, by mendaciously affirming that the above-mentioned laws are not the free expressions of His Majesty's Royal will, have stirred up the people to offer an armed opposition to the execution of the law, and to the legally constituted authorities. And, moreover, that some of these agitators have even proceeded so far in their iniquitous course as to spread the report that this armed opposition has been made in the interests of the dynasty, and with the knowledge, and connivance of His Majesty or of the members of His Majesty's Royal house. I therefore, in order that all the inhabitants of the kingdom, without distinction as to creed or language, may have their minds set at rest, hereby declare, in conformity with the sovereign behest of His Majesty our most gracious King, and in his sovereign name and person, that it is His Majesty's firm and steadfast determination to defend with all his Royal power and authority the unity and integrity of His Royal Hungarian crown against every attack from without, and every attempt at disruption and separation that may be made within the kingdom, and at the same time inviolably to maintain the laws which have received the Royal sanction. And while His Majesty will not suffer any one to curtail the liberties assured to all classes by the law, His Majesty, as well as all the members of His Royal dynasty, strongly condemns the audacity of those who venture to affirm that any illegal act whatsoever or any disrespect of the constituted authorities can be reconcileable with His Majesty's sovereign will, or at all compatible with the interests of the Royal dynasty."
It thus clearly appears that the King acknowledged the validity and the inviolability of the acts passed by the Diet of 1847-8 three months after they had been sanctioned.