whence Kozsta was subsequently taken at Smyrna,--an incident memorable
in our subsequent diplomacy, as having occasioned the celebrated letter
of Webster to the Austrian envoy. Provided by that government with warm
clothing, the money they had taken to Spielberg was restored to them,
not, however, in the original gold coin, but in the Vienna bills for
which it had been then exchanged by the police, diminished nearly
two-thirds in value during the interval of fourteen years. The vessel
was uncomfortably crowded; the voyage occupied three months; but they
fared alike with the officers. Towards the close of October, they
beheld the noble bay of New York; and so intense was the satisfaction
with which they first trod American soil, the goal and terminus of such
protracted suffering, that, ever after, the Battery, where they landed,
was hallowed to their memories as consecrated ground.

Within a few days of their arrival, a banquet was given them by their
compatriots; and from that hour, Foresti became the oracle and the
consoler, the teacher, almoner, and chief of his fellow-exiles.
Subsequent events drove many other Italian patriots to our shores; his
purse and his counsel were ever ready for the impoverished and
inexperienced, who regarded him with filial admiration; while to the
more educated he was the intimate companion or sympathetic friend.
Through his personal influence, employment was constantly obtained and
kindness enlisted for his countrymen. When the great political crisis
of 1848 occurred, Foresti hastened to Europe; Pius IX., at the urgent
prayer of his sisters and cousins, offered him free entrance to his
dominions, a favor his predecessor might have granted but for the
strong opposition of Cardinal Lambruschini. He took counsel with the
revolutionary leaders at Paris, and passed through Italy to the
frontiers of the Papal States, whence the fatal reaction, supported by
French bayonets, at Rome, sent him back once more to the land of his