constitutional liberty which they timidly maintained during the
difficulties of a thousand years with rare fidelity to their sovereigns,
and the house of Hapsburg might long have counted this nation among the
most faithful adherents of the throne.

This dynasty, however, which can at no epoch point to a ruler who based
his power on the freedom of the people, adopted a course towards this
nation, from father to son, which deserves the appellation of perjury.

The house of Austria has publicly used every effort to deprive the
country of its legitimate Independence and Constitution, designing to
reduce it to a level with the other provinces long since deprived of all
freedom, and to unite all in a common sink of slavery. Foiled in this
effort by the untiring vigilance of the nation, it directed its
endeavour to lame the power, to check the progress of Hungary, causing
it to minister to the gain of the provinces of Austria, but only to the
extent which enabled those provinces to bear the load of taxation with
which the prodigality of the imperial house weighed them down; having
first deprived those provinces of all constitutional means of
remonstrating against a policy which was not based upon the welfare of
the subject, but solely tended to maintain despotism and crush liberty
in every country of Europe.

It has frequently happened that the Hungarian nation, in despite of this
systematized tyranny, has been obliged to take up arms in self-defence.
Although constantly victorious in these constitutional struggles, yet so
moderate has the nation ever been in its use of the victory, so strongly
has it confided in the king's plighted word, that it has ever laid down
arms as soon as the king, by new compacts and fresh oaths, has
guaranteed the duration of its rights and liberty. But every new