tional
law?

Your relations with Mexico and Central America; the threatened
intervention of European powers in the possible issue of a recent case
which brought so much mourning into many families in the United States;
the question about the Sandwich Islands, which European diplomacy
appeared to contemplate as an appropriate barrier between your Pacific
States and the Indian and Chinese trade; the sad fate of an American
citizen now condemned to the galleys in Africa; and several other
considerations of pressing concern, must necessarily have contributed to
excite the interest of public opinion for the settlement of the
question, What is and what shall be law amongst nations?--law not
dictated by the whims of ambitious despots, but founded upon everlasting
principles, such as republics can acknowledge who themselves live upon
principles.

The cause of Hungary is implicated with the very questions of right, in
which your country in so many respects is concerned. It happens to lie
so broad across the principles of international law, as to occupy not
only the instinct of the people but also the calm reflection of your
statesmen, conspicuous by mature wisdom and patriotism; and herein is
the key, besides the generosity congenial to freemen, why the cause
which I plead is honoured with so rapid a progress in public sentiment.

And let me entreat your permission for one topic more. I received,
during my brief stay in England, some one hundred and thirty addresses
from cities and associations, all full of the same warm sympathy for my
country's cause, which you also have so generously testified. That
sympathy was accorded to me, notwithstanding my frank declaration that I
am a republican, and that my country, when restored to independence, can
be nothing but a republic. Now this is a fact gratifying to every friend
of progress in public sentiment, highly proving that the people are
everywhere honourable, just, noble, and good. And do you know,
gentlemen, which of these numerous addresses were the most glorious to
the people of England and the most gratifying to me? It was one in which
I heard your Washington praised, and sorrow avowed that England had
opposed that glorious cause upon which is founded the noble fame of that
great man; and the addresses--(numerous they were indeed)--in which the
hope and resolution were expressed, that England and the United States,
forgetting the sorrows of the past will in brotherly love go