hall have what we want, Fair Play; and, relying
"upon our God, the justness of our cause, iron wills, honest hearts and
good swords," my people will strike once more for freedom, independence,
and for Fatherland.

* * * * *

XLV.--THE MARTYRS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

[_Lexington, May 11th_.]

Kossuth having been invited to visit the first battle fields of the
Revolution, was accompanied by several members of the State Committee,
on May 11th, to West Cambridge, Lexington, and Concord. He had already
visited Bunker Hill on the 3d of May, but we have not in these pages
found room for his speech there. At West Cambridge he was addressed by
the Rev. Thomas Hill, and replied: at Lexington also he received two
addresses, and the following was his reply:--

Gentlemen,--It has been often my lot to stand upon classical ground,
where the whispering breeze is fraught with wonderful tales of devoted
virtue, bright glory, and heroic deeds. And I have sat upon ruins of
ancient greatness, blackened by the age of centuries; and I have seen
the living ruins of those ancient times, called men, roaming about the
sacred ground, unconscious that the dust which clung to their boots, was
the relic of departed demigods--and I rose with a deep sigh. Those
demigods were but men, and the degenerate shapes that roamed around me,
on the hallowed ground, were also not less than men. The decline and
fall of nations impresses the mark of degradation on nature itself. It
is sad to think upon--it lops the soaring wings of the mind, and chills
the fiery arms of energy. But, however dark be the impression of such
ruins of vanished greatness upon the mind of men who themselves have
experienced the fragility of human fate, thanks to God, there are bright
spots yet on earth, where the recollections of the past, brightened by
present prosperity, strengthen the faith in the future of mankind's
destiny. Such a spot is this.

Gentlemen, should the reverence which this spot commands allow a smile,
I might feel inclined to smile at the eager controversy whether it was
at Lexington or Concord that the fire of the British was first returned
by Americans. Let it be this way or that way,--it will neither increase
nor abate the merit of the martyrs who fell here. It is with their blood
that the preface of your nation's history is written. Their death was,
and always will be, the first bloody revelation of America's destiny;
and