Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/440

 upon another, resulting in insurrectionary attempts which always failed. But these failures did not discourage him; they rather stimulated his zeal to new efforts. In the course of our conversation he gave me to understand that he had preparations going on for a new enterprise in upper Italy, and as he probably considered me a person of influence in that part of German refugeedom which would control the disposition of our prospective national loan, he wished to know whether we would be inclined to support his undertaking with our money. At any rate, he evidently desired to create among us a disposition favorable to such coöperation. He no doubt took me for a more influential person than I was. I could only promise him to discuss the matter with Kinkel and his associates, after his return from America. But I did not conceal from Mazzini that I doubted whether the responsible German leaders would consider themselves justified in using moneys which had been collected for employment in their own country for the furtherance of revolutionary uprisings in Italy. This remark gave Mazzini an opportunity for some eloquent sentiments about the solidarity of peoples in their struggle for liberty and national existence. At that time neither of us knew yet how small would be the result of the agitation for a German national loan.

I was honored with another meeting that has remained to me hardly less memorable. In October, 1851, Louis Kossuth came to England. After the breakdown of the Hungarian revolution he had fled across the Turkish frontier. His remaining on Turkish soil was considered objectionable by the Austrian government, and unsafe by his friends. The Sultan, indeed, refused his extradition. But when the republic of the United States of America, in general sympathy with the unfortunate Hungarian patriots, offered them an American