“I feel,” he said to them, “as if God had put in my hands the trumpet to rouse the dead, that, if sinners and weak, they may sink back into death, but that, if the vigor of life is still in them, they may waken to eternity.” He then went on to review the quarrel with Croatia, declaring that to that country Hungary had, from immemorial time, accorded all the privileges which she herself enjoyed, and that recently she had conceded to the Croats a wider use of their native language. “I can understand a people,” he said ironically, “who, deeming the freedom they possess too little, take up arms to acquire more, though they play, indeed, a hazardous game, for such weapons are two-edged; but I cannot understand a people who say, ‘The freedom you offer us is too great,--we will not accept your offer, but will go and submit ourselves to the yoke of Absolutism.’” Kossuth next touched on the situation in the South, and showed wherein it differed from that in the Southwest. He told how the Camarilla had sought to compel the ministers to acknowledge the unlawful pretensions of Croatia, and thereby to annul the pledges of the King. He pointed out, as an ominous cloud on the eastern horizon, the recent appearance of a Russian army along the Pruth. When, after this review, he solemnly announced, “The fatherland is in danger,” not a deputy was surprised, not a head shook incredulously. At last he asked for authority to levy two hundred thousand soldiers, and to raise a loan of forty-two million florins, setting forth the means by which he planned to meet this extraordinary measure as eloquently as he had set forth its need. He had held the Assembly captivated for two hours; now, as he was closing, his strength failed, and he could not speak. The deputies, too, were speechless. For a brief moment intense silence reigned between him and them. Then Paul Nyáry, who only yesterday had attacked the policy of the Cabinet, rose, lifted his right hand as if invoking God to be his witness, and exclaimed, “We grant everything!” In a flash four hundred hands were raised, and four hundred voices repeated Nyáry’s covenant. When quiet came again, Kossuth had recovered strength to say that his request should not be taken as a demand for a vote of confidence. “We ask your vote for the preservation of the country; and, sirs, if any breast sighs for freedom, if any desire waits for fulfilment, let that breast suffer a little longer, let it have patience until we have saved the fatherland. You have all risen to a man, and I bow before the great-heartedness of the nation, while I ask one thing more: let your energy equal your patriotism, and the gates of hell itself shall not prevail against Hungary!” In March, under the magic of Kossuth’s irresistible oratory, the Magyars had boldly demanded their constitutional rights; now in July, thrilled by the same magic, they pledged themselves to defend their independence to the death.