a rebel, the honour, the property and the lives of the
people; in the hand of a man who, with armed bands, had braved the laws,
and attacked the Constitution of the country.

But the house of Austria was not contented with the unjustifiable
violation of oaths taken by its head.

The rebellious Ban was taken under the protection of the troops
stationed near Vienna, and commanded by Prince Windischgraetz. These
troops, after taking Vienna by storm, were led as an imperial Austrian
army to conquer Hungary. But the Hungarian nation, persisting in its
loyalty, sent an envoy to the advancing enemy. This envoy, coming under
a flag of truce, was treated as a prisoner, and thrown into prison. No
heed was paid to the remonstrances and the demands of the Hungarian
nation for justice. The threat of the gallows was, on the contrary,
thundered against all who had taken arms in defence of a wretched and
oppressed country. But before the army had time to enter Hungary, a
family revolution in the tyrannical reigning house was perpetrated at
Olmuetz. Ferdinand V. was forced to resign a throne which had been
polluted with so much blood and perjury, and the son of Francis Charles,
(who also abdicated his claim to the inheritance,) the youthful Archduke
Francis Joseph, caused himself to be proclaimed Emperor of Austria and
King of Hungary. But no one can by any family compact dispose of the
constitutional throne without the Hungarian nation.

At this critical moment the Hungarian nation demanded nothing more than
the maintenance of its laws and institutions, and peace guaranteed by
their integrity. Had the assent of the nation to this change in the
occupant of the throne been asked in a legal manner, and the young
prince offered to take the customary oath that he would preserve the
Constitution, the Hungarian nation would not have refused to elect him
king in accordance with the treaties extant, and to crown him with St.
Stephen's crown, before he had dipped his hand in the blood of the
people.

He, however, refusing to perform an act so sacred in the eyes of God and
man, and in strange contrast to the innocence natural to youthful
breasts, declared in his first words his intention of conquering
Hungary, (which he dared to call a rebellious country, whereas it was he
himself that raised rebellion there,) and of depriving it of that
independence which it had maintained for a thousand years, to
incorporate it into the Austrian monarchy.**