Jánossy Dénes: A Kossuth-emigráció Angliában és Amerikában 1851-1852, I. kötet (Budapest, 1940)

Okirattár

Sir, how fervently I must have wished to have the honour to be conducted by this very frigate to the United States. But I know that the sympathy of the United States is not given to any man in the world for his own sake, but for tho principle's sake that he represents. And so I felt convinced that I should prove unworthy of this sympathy (this highest treasure of my life) should I neglect for a single moment the duties which divine Providence has assigned to me; should I neglect to provide, according to the exigencies of circumstances, for the interest of yonder cause which the glorious Republic of the United States honoured with its approbation and its sympathy. It became, therefore, an imperious duty of honour and conscience to me not to leave Europe without arranging my public and private affairs, and carefully providing against any harm to the sacred aim of my life, for that time which I shall have to enjoy the honour of the hospitality of your glorious land. So the most imperious duties of a patriot, a father, and a man, impose upon me the necessity to stop for a few days in England before I continue my passage to the United States. Commodore Morgan, at Spezia, and afterwards Captain Long, of the Mississippi, here did, with the noble kindness of a true American heart, appreciate the motives of this necessity, and generously consented to wait with the Mississippi in the bay of Gibraltar for my return from England with the packet boat which leaves Southampton on the 27*h instant. But the Government of the French Republic' (not the French nation, but its present Government) refused to grant me permission to pass rapidly through France, by which passage I might have spared time and sufferings to my wife and children. And now the first means of conveyance- to England I can avail myself of this only packet boat, expected to-morrow to arrive from the Orient; and this, too, making eleven days to England from here. On the other hand, Captain Long informs me that any longer delay here would render, not only my associates, but also the officers and crew of the Mississippi, liable, in approaching the coast of the United States at a late season, to many suffer-