Had Palmerston the liberal breathed the free spirit of Canning the tory-and when Russia crossed the Carpathians, sent British troops to Hungary-as Canning did to Portugal-Hungary had now been free.

Had he firmly supported the struggling nations of Italy whose revolts he countenanced and encouraged only to desert, English statesmen would not now be estimating her power to wage single-handed a war against the spiritual and temporal despots of combined Europe.

Had England met the menace of Russian intervention in the affairs of Hungary with her armed protest, it probably would never have taken place—and Hungary was master of her own destiny so long as she had to deal with Austria alone. If Russia disregarded that protest and England had given effect to her declaration by such support of Hungary as she bestowed on Spain against Napoleon, there can be no sort of question of the result. She would have been aiding a martial and heroic people, so absolutely united in their cause that the enemy could not buy spies, so devoted that thousands were turned away in tears because there were not arms to put in their hands, with a government resting on the affections of the people and wielded by the only man equal to the crisis of 1848. She need have sent no army to rally a people animated, united, and in arms. All they needed was her countenance, her commerce, her supplies of arms, her fleet to sweep the seas. With no other aid Hungary could have turned the tide of Russian invasion and set the very heart of

the empire in a flame by an appeal to the fiery Pole. This Republic could have aided in this cause: alone she could have turned the scale: with England it would have been an easy game. They were both blind and indifferent: and with the fall of Hungary all the precious blood of the revolutions of 1848 sunk fruitless into the earth.

Should the fires of revolution again blaze up— should any such combination of propitious events again occur—it is the true policy as it is the bounden duty of the two only free and powerful governments of the world, with united arms, to dare the worst in the great cause of freedom-unswayed by any prejudices about forms of government, socialist theories, the rights of rival classes—but firmly holding to the conviction that the people of every nation, when freed from the oppression and terror of external domination, will wisely, calmly, and peacefully settle their own affairs on a basis satisfactory to themselves. No temporary excesses of the outraged people should chill their ardor or relax their efforts; for every battle is with confusion and garments rolled in blood: and liberty is worth the costly excesses which accompany the conflict. We should lay aside the arrogant boast that however the genus human being may prevail in Europe the species man flourishes only in America. We leave to despots as the only defence of their iniquities the humbling suggestion of the unfitness of the people of Europe for the blessings and securities of liberty. It would be well to seek in the wisdom and moderation of their legislative proceedings the proofs of their capacity; and to

look for the causes of their overthrow in the combination of external violence and internal treachery. It might moderate our scorn for the humiliation of France by Louis Napoleon to reflect what would have been our fate had Washington accepted the crown his officers pressed him to assume; and how far the necessity of a standing army of three hundred thousand men would place our institutions at the mercy of our President. It may be worth while to reflect how long our revolutionary fathers could have stood before such armies as invaded Hungary; and that we achieved our independence with three thousand miles of ocean rolling between us and our foes only by the gold and arms of France without which we must have failed. It will throw light on the question to remember that a standing army of ten thousand men would have saved Charles I. his head, and secured England for the cause of legitimate monarchy. We join in the scandal of our enemies when we thus confound the capacity to govern with the ability to repel overwhelming violence or to insure exemption from internal treachery. We should rather stand amazed at the stupendous successes of the friends of liberty in the face of such obstacles than scandalized at their overthrow. Their heroism is worthy of our sympathy not of our scorn; and if they fell we are guilty of their blood which flowed because we failed to repay the aid we received. When the people of Europe are relieved from the fears of external and despotic violence those great armies so dangerous to free institutions-will melt

away from the face of the earth; and with security and freedom will come peace, moderation, and repose. We hold fast to the faith-that the wildest theorist, the most licentious socialist, the fiercest jacobin is less dangerous, less deadly, less bloody and proscriptive, than is the soft tongued and treacherous hearted, the crowned and anointed, the legalized and legitimate pirate against human freedom; and turning from the red republic to the redder despotism, we remember that one is a passing fury, the other a perpetual scourge breathing poison and dealing death, and dwelling in darkness which is rendered doubly terrible by the blacker demons of spiritual despotism which flit around its throne the obsequious ministers of its will.

The contest is not between republicanism and monarchy: but between freedom and slavery: the power of the despot and the power of the people. It is matter of serious doubt whether a hereditary head— if one can be found with an honest heart-be not the safest for the present necessities of some parts of Europe. Whether best or worst, it is entirely compatible with free institutions: and its adoption or rejection should not be permitted for a moment to divide the friends of freedom in the face of their common and deadly foe-who can be conciliated by no form of government where popular power is honestly recognized. It is folly for the friends of the people to insure their common ruin, because they cannot agree on the form in which they will enjoy the liberty they have not yet acquired. The strongest freest best government of the world-after our own

is the popular monarchy of England. The crowned head of Victoria is infinitely dearer to us than the crownless despot who mocks the world with the nickname of Prince President of the French Republic. It is true that royalty ancient and modern has defiled every word which man has invented to designate it. Despot, tyrant, king-what of iniquity do not the very words import? Yet it is the use alone which has soiled them. In their origin they were simple and honest names for high offices—as respectable as that of president: and that venerable title will contract similar contamination if worn much longer by the despot of France. There is something cold and heartless, selfish and inhuman, at the very core of royal natures. Lifted-like lofty mountainsfar into the regions of the air, their approach to the heavens makes them only colder than their fellows of the earth. The light of the sun pours without its warmth on their heads-illuminating the distant paths of ambition, but not softening the heart so that it can relent in its inexorable purposes. Human sympathies perish in the eternal snows which wrap them round. They embody and represent the cold malignity of Satan, treacherous, cunning, and cruel, unmoved in their purposes by any soft emotion, wise in the light of reason to pursue their deeds of iniquity, and infinitely removed from the reach of pity or remorse for the blood that they shed or the hearts that they break. Such is the curse with which despotic power blights its possessor: and its blackest traits have been exemplified on the thrones of Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century.