c addresses? I say, "the exigency of circumstances has raised
the question of foreign policy to the highest standard of
importance,--the question is introduced to the Congress, it must
therefore be brought to a decision, it cannot be passed in silence any
more. Your representatives in Congress take it for their noblest glory
to follow the sovereign will of the people; but to be able to follow it,
they must know it; yet they cannot know it without the people
manifesting its opinion in a constitutional way; since they have not
been elected upon the question of foreign policy, that question being
then not yet discussed. I therefore humbly entreat the sovereign people
of the United States to consider the matter, and to pronounce its
opinion, in such a way as it is consistent with law, and with their
constitutional duties and rights." May I not be tranquillized in my
conscience, that in speaking thus I commit no disloyal act, and do in no
way offend against the high veneration due from me to your constituted
authorities?

If it be so, then the generous manifestation of your sympathy I am
honoured with in Mobile, is again a highly valuable benefit to my cause,
because it has such a character of spontaneity, that, here at least, no
misrepresentation can charge me with having even endeavoured to elicit
that high-minded manifestation from the metropolis of the State of
Alabama.

So doubly returning my thanks for it, I beg leave to state what it is I
humbly entreat.

Firstly, when the struggle which is to decide on the freedom of Europe
has once broken out, Hungary has resources to carry it on: but she wants
initial aid, because her finances are all grasped by our oppressors. You
would not refuse to me, a houseless exile, _alms_ and commiseration
if I begged for myself. Surely then you cannot refuse it for my bleeding
fatherland, when I beg of you, as individuals, trifling sums, such as
each can well spare, and the gift of which does not entangle your
country in any political obligation.

Whatever may be my personal fate, millions would thank and coming
generations bless it as a source of happiness to them, as once the
nineteen million francs, 24,000 muskets, and thirty-eight vessels of war
which France gave to the cause of your own independence, have been a
source of happiness to you. I rely in that respect upon the republican
virtue which your immortal Washington has bequeathed to you in his
memorable address to M. Adet, t