h. They may find a substantial interest involved
that is worth taking care of. Governor Kossuth may be assured it is of
more consequence than sympathy. It is a wonderfully sensitive nerve in
this country: it controls most of the others.--Sympathy, in this case,
can take care of itself. It does not require any nursing. The interests
involved should be attended to. It seems to me that this position as to
our commerce with Hungary cannot be attacked in front, in rear, or on
either flank. It is by far more forcible and powerful than the _ex
post facto_ argument in favour of the Mexican war, that it got us
California and its gold. So far as the general welfare of the country is
concerned, free trade with independent Hungary, and its certain ultimate
results, would be more invaluable than all the cargoes of gold that may
be brought from the Pacific coast, if ten times the present amount."

That is the opinion of a distinguished American citizen, identified
chiefly with the interests of the South.

As to me, I beg permission to sketch in a few lines the reverse of the
picture. If we fail in our enterprize to check the encroaching progress
of absolutism, if the despots of Europe succeed to accomplish their
plot, the chief part of which for Russia is to get hold of
Constantinople, and thus to become the controlling power of the
Mediterranean sea, what will be the immediate result of it in respect to
your commerce?

No man of sound judgment can entertain the least doubt that the first
step of Russia will and must be, to exclude America from the markets of
Europe by the renewal of what is called the continental system. Not a
single bushel of wheat or corn, not a single pound of tobacco, not a
single bale of cotton, will you be permitted to sell on the continent of
Europe. The leagued despots must exclude you, because you are
republicans, and commerce is the conveyer of principles; they must
exclude you, because by ruining your commerce they ruin your prosperity,
and by ruining this they ruin your development, which is dangerous to
them. Russia besides must exclude you, because you are the most
dangerous rival to her in the European markets where you have already
beaten her. And it will be the more the interest of Russia to exclude
you, because by taking Constantinople, she will also become the master
of Asiatic and African regions, where also cotton is raised.

Well, you say, perhaps, though you be excluded from the European
c