measures, and is just such as kings require to put us to sleep again
in that old hazy slumber which is the death of nations. Every day he
odiously betrays his country, and nevertheless, despite his treason,
remains an idol for half Germany, which, dazzled by him, accepts
unresisting the poison poured out by him in his periodic pamphlets,
wrapped up and protected as he is by the seductive mantle of a great
poetic reputation. Incited by him, the princes of Germany, who have
forgotten their promises, will allow nothing free or good to be
accomplished; or if anything of the kind is accomplished in spite of
them, they will league themselves with the French to annihilate it. That
the history of our time may not be covered with eternal ignominy, it is
necessary that he should fall.

"I have always said that if we wish to find a great and supreme remedy
for the state of abasement in which we are, none must shrink from combat
nor from suffering; and the real liberty of the German people will only
be assured when the good citizen sets himself or some other stake upon
the game, and when every true son of the country, prepared for the
struggle for justice, despises the good things of this world, and only
desires those celestial good things which death holds in charge.

"Who then will strike this miserable hireling, this venal traitor?

"I have long been waiting in fear, in prayer, and in tears--I who am
not born for murder--for some other to be beforehand with me, to set me
free, and suffer me to continue my way along the sweet and peaceful path
that I had chosen for myself. Well, despite my prayers and my tears,
he who should strike does not present himself; indeed, every man,
like myself, has a right to count upon some other, and everyone thus
counting, every hour's delay, but makes our state worse; far at any
moment--and how deep a shame would that be for us! Kotzebue may leave
Germany, unpunished, and go to devour in Russia the treasures for which
he has exchanged his honour, his conscience, and his German name. Who
can preserve us from this shame, if every man, if I myself, do not
feel strength to make myself the chosen instrument of God's justice?
Therefore, forward! It shall be I who will courageously rush upon him
(do not be alarmed), on him, the loathsome seducer; it shall be I who
will kill the traitor, so that his misguiding voice, being extinguished,
shall cease to lead us astray from the lessons of history and from th