which he desired, I have not thought I should show honour to him by
retaining anything verbally unskilful. To a certain cautious extent, I
account myself to be a _translator_, as well as a _reporter_,
and in undertaking so delicate a duty, I am happy to announce that I
have received Kossuth's written approval and thanks. Mere quaintness of
expression I have by no means desired entirely to remove, where it
involved nothing grotesque, obscure, or monotonous. In several passages
where I imperfectly understood the thought, I have had the advantage of
Kossuth's personal explanations, which have enabled me to clear up the
defective report, or real obscurities of his words.

Nevertheless I have to confess my conviction, that nothing can wholly
compensate for the want of systematic revision by the author himself;
which his great occupations have made impossible. The mistakes in the
reports of the speeches are sometimes rather subtle, and have not roused
my suspicion. Of this I have been, made disagreeably sensible, by
several errata communicated to me by Kossuth in the first great speech
at New York, here marked as No. VII. (which have been corrected in this
edition.)

Nearly all the points on which attempts have been made to misrepresent
in England the cause of Hungary are cleared up in these speeches. On two
subjects only does it seem needful here to make any remark:
_first_, on the Republicanism of Kossuth; _secondly_, on the
Hungarian levies against Italy in the year 1848.

1. Kossuth is attacked by his countrymen on opposite grounds: Szemerè
despises him for not becoming a republican early enough, Count Casimir
Bathyanyi reproves him for becoming a republican at all. The facts are
these. Kossuth, like all English statesmen, was a historical royalist,