ours; your speech is spoken by those hostile bands who come to us with
fire and sword; nevertheless we come to you as to brothers.

"The war which calls for our resistance is not your war; you are not
our enemies: you are only instruments in the hand of our foe, and this
foe, brothers, is common to us all.

"Before God, before men, solemnly we declare it,--our only enemy is
the government of Austria.

"And that government which for so many years has labored to cancel, in
the races it has subdued, every vestige of nationality, which takes
no heed of their wants or prayers, bent only on serving miserable
interests and more miserable pride, fomenting always antipathies
conformably with the ancient maxim of tyrants, _Divide and
govern_,--this government has constituted itself the adversary of
every generous thought, the ally and patron of all ignoble causes,
the government declared by the whole civilized world paymaster of the
executioners of Galicia.

"This government, after having pertinaciously resisted the legal
expression of moderate desires,--after having defied with ludicrous
hauteur the opinion of Europe, has found itself in its metropolis
too weak to resist an insurrection of students, and has yielded,--has
yielded, making an assignment on time, and throwing to you, brothers,
as an alms-gift to the importunate beggar, the promise of institutions
which, in these days, are held essential conditions of life for a
civilized nation.

"But you have not confided in this promise; for the youth of Vienna,
which feels the inspiring breath of this miraculous time, is impelled
on the path of progress; and therefore the Austrian government,
uncertain of itself and of your dispositions, took its old part of
standing still to wait for events, in the hope of turning them to its
own profit.

"In the midst of this it received the news of our glorious revolution,
and it thought to have found in this the best way to escape from
its embarrassment. First it concealed that news; then made it known
piecemeal, and disfigured by hypocrisy and hatred. We were a handful
of rebels thirsting for German blood. We make a war of stilettos, we
wish the destruction of all Germany. But for us answers the admiration
of all Italy, of all Europe, even the evidence of your own people whom
we are constrained to hold prisoners or hostages, who will unanimously
avow that we have shown heroic courage in the fight, heroic moderation
in victory.

"