It was from Neusatz, then, that, on April 8, 1848, a deputation arrived at Presburg and declared that, while they were in sympathy with the March movement, and had no desire to separate from Hungary, they yet wished for protection for their national language and customs. They therefore demanded the re-establishment of the Patriarchal dignity and of the office of Voyvode; requesting, further, that the power of the latter officer should be extended over the territories which the Serbs had reconquered from the Turks. Kossuth answered that the Magyars would do their best to respect national feeling, and to give the Serbs a share in the freedom which the Magyars had won; but that only the Magyar language could bind the different nationalities together. Batthyanyi echoed the words of Kossuth in an even stronger form. "Then," the Serbs answered, "we must look for recognition elsewhere than at Presburg." "In that case," answered Kossuth, "the sword must decide." "The Serbs," retorted one of the deputation, "were never afraid of that." And so the glove was thrown down. A few days later came a deputation from Carlowitz with the same object; for the clergy, however little sympathy they might feel with Gaj's movement, feared, as heartily as the citizens of Neusatz could do, the interference of the Magyars with Serb independence. The Magyars seem to have learned already the tyrannical arts of Metternich; for they met the petition of the clergy with the threat that they would extend to the Roumanians the liberties granted to the Serbs; and they were, no doubt, proportionately disappointed when the deputation answered that they were perfectly ready to share their rights with the Roumanians. The quarrel thus begun soon led to an actual outbreak. In the town of Velika-Kikinda, in the Banat, there had arisen one of those disturbances which are the natural marks of a revolutionary period. The peasantry, excited by the changes in their position, had begun to expect still further advantages. A worthless adventurer had become a candidate for one of the village judgeships, and had promised that, if elected, he would recover for the peasantry, without compensation to the present possessors, all the lands that their lords had taken from them. He was elected, but was, of course, unable to carry out his promises; and the disappointed peasantry rose in indignation and made a riot. The soldiers were called out to suppress the movement, but were repelled and disarmed; the magistrates' houses were broken open, and two of them were killed. Thereupon the Magyars sent down a Commissioner to inquire into the riot; the people were ready to surrender the murderers to justice; but the Commissioners seized the opportunity to declare that all the Serb villages in the neighbourhood were concerned in a communistic rising; and, in consequence, they placed them under martial law.