11 [2] 



States. In this manner, the original nvunber of the refugees soon became 

 Very much diminished. 



In the Sultan's offer to detain the Hungarian chiefs, he made no allusion 

 to any period of time, and its duration, consequently depends wholly upon 

 himself. Notwithstanding the pressing demands of the Austrian govern- 

 ment that Mr. Kossuth, and the others named in its list, should be detained 

 for life, the humane and generous Sultan, promised only ojie year. 



The Austrian government subsequently diminished its demand to twenty, 

 fifteen, ten, and finally to five years; but the Sultan remained fiim at his 

 offer of one year. It was questioned, previous to my departure from Con- 

 stantinople, when the year offered by the Sultan should commence, and 

 when terminate ; and as the refugees had crossed the Danube and entered 

 Turkey in the month of September, 1849, it might commence with that 

 event and end in the same month of the following year ; or it might com- 

 mence with the date of the list of the individuals whom the Austrian go- 

 vernment desired should be detained, that is to say, at the end of May, 

 1850, (when the list was by mutual agreement to be closed,) in which 

 case, the period of their detention would terminate with the month of 

 May, of the present year. In the meantime, ]\Ir. Kossuth with some 

 twenty five or thirty others named in the list, and about forty more, who, 

 at their own request, were allowed to share in the exile of their late Go- 

 vernor, wei-e removed by the Sultan's orders tVom Shumla, in Roomelia, 

 to Kutayich, the place fixed upon for their residence, and where they 

 yet remain under strict surveillance. The Hungarians who remained at 

 Shumla continued to receive rations and a small montldy sti]U'nd out of the 

 Sultan's treasury ; those who escaped to the Capital, and did not leave the 

 country, forfeited this pecuniary assistance, and consequently, soon fell 

 into very destitute circumstances. Many of the latter found emjdoyment 

 in the service of benevolent Musselmans ; others were employed in the 

 Sultan's army, and a good number end)raced Islamism in the hope of re- 

 ceiving military preferment. Contributions were made among the foreign 

 legations and among the foreign residents in Pera, for the relief of the more 

 needy, and the Turkish ministers never fiiiled to aid those whose peculiar 

 destitution was made known to them. This was the position of the affair 

 wlien I left Constantinople, May 20th, of last year ; and in the expectation 

 that the year for which Mr. Kossuth was to be detained vrould terminate 

 in the md^ith of last September, I fully believed that he woidd ere this, 

 have been released, and in the enjoyment of the blessing of liberty in the 

 United States. 



It was the Sultan's promise, contained in his auton-raph leKer to the 

 Em[)eroi- of Austria, which prevented his government liom accepting the 

 s;enerous olfer of the late lamented President, to convey Mr. Kossuth and 

 his friends to the United States in one of our public vessels, which oiler 

 was made in March last, through the Minister resident of the Ur,ite(l Stales 

 lit Constantinople. The Sultan, I cannot but feel confident, has no desire 

 or interest in the detention of Mr. Kossuth, and would be most hapjiy, I 

 lii'lieve, to be released from the expense and inconvenience which it occa- 

 sions him. And whilst the Tui'kish government decided not to permit him 

 to be conveyed to this country in the steamer " Misslssijjpi," wliich vessel 

 was proposed to it for that purpose, some of the Sultan's ministers ex- 

 pressed the most positive assurances, in which 1 still ])lace confidence, that 

 his detention should not be prolonged beyoud the period of one year. 



