others seizing hold of a priest, stripping him to the skin, and dragging him after them in this state, whilst they forced him to show them the houses inhabited by Servians, and then plundered or pulled them down. In Mohol, the soldiers tore out the entrails of a priest, the venerable Constantine Popovich, and massacred his

son.*

Not to be depicted are the horrors committed by these wild troops, in the churches of Futtak, Földvar, Mohol, and Kikinda. I will pass over in silence the wanton destruction of all the objects belonging to the celebration of Divine Service; but I believe it is without example in history, that Christian troops, in a place they had taken, should have seized the Holiest of Holies-the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharisty, which was there in readiness for the sick, and should have dared to trample it under foot, setting fire to the holy altar itself, with nameless other horrors! At the image of the Virgin they fired their pistols; of the pictures of other saints they picked out the eyes. As they could not wreak their cowardly rage upon any Servian warriors, they outraged women and young girls, slaughtering them, together with infants and children, and all defenceless beings, cutting off their noses and ears. All that they could carry away, they plundered; the rest they destroyed. From the camp of Tarak there came no one single manno enemy could be found on the Neusatzer territory, yet the whole of Neusatzer Sallaschen is a heap of ruins.

Excellency!-from this description, far short of the truth of the excesses of the Magyars, you may easily draw this inference; namely, that if to such barbarities some limit be not speedily set, this national war, provoked by the Magyars, may, nay, must soon turn to a religious war. I fear much lest I may soon be no longer able to withhold the troops, and their commanders here, from the commission of similar excesses, in the way of reprisals. I fear much that the Bâtchka, the Banat, and Syrmia, may soon be but a desert waste; I fear much that the entire benefits of a thirty years' peace may be effaced, in these countries, in the space of a few weeks. After what has happened, the Servian nation finds itself forced to self-defence; and, from the knowledge I have of the Servians, I am convinced they will fight for their religion and nationality to the last, and desperately, and sooner die than allow either to be

touched.

I must openly avow to your Excellency, that the Servians, after all the atrocities of the Magyars, have drawn the conclusion, that the Magyars, in respect to them, are bent upon a war of extermination. What will be the consequence? I believe this, that they will take a lesson from the Magyars, and repay them in their

own coin.

* The Greek priests, it must be remembered, are allowed to marry.

Is it right that two brave, high-hearted nations, should ruin one another for the caprice of a few wild fanatics? is it right that the nation should here be slaughtered, which on the battle fields of Italy is sending forth its sons to fight like lions for the Emperor, and for the maintenance of the Monarchy, supporting the honour of the Austrian arms, giving their best blood to keep her banner spotless? I ask you, as an old soldier, as a man of honour, -have they done this, or not? Ask Marshal Radetzky, ask the other Generals in Italy-they will confirm my words.

Is it right that, from the bench of Ministers in Pesth, they should hear the fathers and brothers they have left at home stigmatized as robbers and rebels, whilst they are fighting and dying for a common King? Is it right that so brave, so true a nation, one so entirely devoted to the throne and dynasty, should be massacred, because it asks for the rights awarded to it for services rendered, by Hungarian Kings and German Emperors? rights, positive and sacred, rights which, at the present hour, all nations possess or pretend to?-Excellency! the Servian nation has not the means of prosecuting a war which are at the disposal of the Magyar Ministry -the Servians never dreamt of war, until the attack made on the 12th of June, upon the unoffending town of Karlowitz, and upon all they hold sacred, provoked them to it. They were resolved to pursue the obtention of their rights by legal means. Therefore did they send me, with a considerable deputation, to the foot of the throne, to ask for help,-there where they had been ever accustomed to seek for aid and assistance. Whilst the Servians had recourse to this step which I, and every one must regard as a perfectly inoffensive, legal one, you make an attack on Karlowitz, an open, unarmed, undefended town -a town which, as you well knew, had suffered frightfully but the year before, from fire and from storms, a town which had ever received you within its walls, with kindness, respect, and hospitality; a town more worthy of your pity than of your vengeance;-you time your attack upon a day holy throughout all Christendom, at an hour devoted to the worship of the Almighty-instead of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the wretched town receives your balls, your bombs, and your murderous brands, which know no difference between innocent and guilty; your soldiers-Magyars,-set fire in cold blood to the houses, wound and maim women and children, shoot in the fossés, under the bridge, nine unarmed men-throw an old wounded man with his wife into a burning house, and then, pursued by some illequipped peasantry, fly back to their fortress!

With this most ill-advised act, your Excellency has occasioned three evils: first, thirteen innocent lives have been lost, besides all those who have perished in the burning of different dwellings; secondly, you have driven the Servian nation forcibly from the road of legality, on which it hoped to attain its ends; but thirdly, the

greatest evil produced has been, that you have lighted the flames of civil war, and given to it the peculiar character of horror by which it is marked. Excuse me, Excellency, if I give you this true-most essentially true, description of the attack upon Karlowitz, for I happen to know positively that the report made upon it to you by the Commandant of the troops, was an inexact one, as it sufficiently proved by the public papers, published under the influence of the Magyars.

Excellency what I say is not alone the expression of my individual opinion, but that of public opinion throughout the whole nation. If the Magyars do not immediately change their mode of proceeding, and do not begin to carry on the war against the Servians upon a more civilized system, the latter will inevitably take example upon them, and copy their barbarity. Germans, Slowacks, Wallacks, Russines of Syrmia, of the Bâtchka, and of the Banat, all those who voluntarily or involuntarily (it matters little which) make war upon the Servians, under the banner of the Magyars, will be treated like the Magyars. Peace-lovers and people of neutral countries, of whatsoever creed or nationality they may be, will be treated like brothers, and protected both in their persons and in their property.

As I look upon your Excellency still as my personal friend, I hasten to impart to you these details, and beg of you to make use of them in the needful quarters, and as quickly as possible.

Humanity, the welfare of our fair fatherland, the welfare of all the populations united under the Imperial dynasty, the welfare of the united empire, all ask for a rapid peace, all clamour for tranquillity. Each day's delay brings a thousand evils to the country.

I shall rejoice beyond everything, I shall be the happiest man in existence, if my observations obtain from your Excellency, and in a still higher quarter, the attention and the approbation I think they deserve.

Meanwhile I remain,

Your Excellency's obedient humble servant,

JOSEF RAJACIC,

Archbishop.

No. III.

Proclamation to the Croato-Slavonians.

When, in the days of March, the loud voice of the people clamoured for deliverance from the secular oppression of the old system, our good monarch listened, and spoke at once of freedom, of equality, of rights, for all the populations of his vast and powerful empire.

A happy, a brilliant future, seemed assured to us; but, unluckily, we-Croats, Slavonians, and the other Servian, Rouman, and German members of the same family-we were soon made aware of the precise contrary. An arrogant, selfish, ambitious faction in Hungary profited by the excitement inseparable from such changes, to wrest from our most gracious sovereign concessions, by which the most precious of all our possessions, liberty, became their privilege, and that of the Magyar race alone; by which all the other subjects of the Hungarian Crown were to be doomed to slavery. And this same faction also, by the establishment of a separate ministry, annihilated in fact the unity of the Hungarian provinces with the Empire, guaranteed by the Pragmatic Sanction.

The existence of the kingdom of Croatia was straightway denied ; the kingdom of Slavonia was declared a county of Hungary; the use of the Magyar language was prescribed, and established in all the provinces, even in the more southern ones, almost entirely peopled by the Servians. The consequence was, the discontent of a race distinguished for services done to the country, and for its bravery; a discontent augmented to desperation, so soon as the Hungarian ministry began to give the support of force to the work of injustice.

These were the fruits, to us, of our newly obtained freedom! Here were the "equal rights" set down by the law of nature, and sanctioned by the sacred word, the law of our most excellent monarch! This was the reward for the thousand services that our race has, through centuries, done to the Hungarian Crown, and to the United-Monarchy, for the rivers of blood that it has poured forth for the defence of a common fatherland! This to a nation, which, in our immediate times counted, on the battle fields of Italy, 35,000 of its sons in the ranks of the Austrian army, until its struggles to preserve the honour of the Austrian name had decimated its numbers.

I will not speak of the manifold direct and indirect attacks upon the Croato-Serbo-Slavonian race; of the thousand suspicions, and disdains, and slights; of the endless persecutions, which in a thousand forms menaced me, as Ban of the three united kingdoms,

threatening my honour and my life. I advert to them simply, because not alone I, but in me, the good right of the nation was thereby attacked.

Constant deputations of our people begged repeatedly, at the foot of our good monarch's throne, for protection, for justice. Ill luck watched over us, and all our prayers were in vain.

At length, in gracious consideration of these sad circumstances, his Majesty fixed upon the Archduke John to be the intermediary and the adjuster of the differences between Croatia, Slavonia, and the Hungarian ministry. In obedience to most high commands, I also went to Vienna, readily lending my hand to the work of peace and conciliation. But this step, too, was useless. I demanded, in the name of the Croato-Slavonian nation, the maintenance of the Pragmatic Sanction, the which establishes (Croato-Slavonian Provincial Diet, of the 9th March, 1712, sanctioned expressly by the Emperor Charles VI.) " that the kingdoms of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, subjected to the rule, not only of the male, but also of the female descendants of the Imperial House, shall however only be held to obey those who shall be possessed not alone of Austria, but also of Styria, Carmiole, and Carinthia, and who shall reside in the above-mentioned Austria :" which further ordains (Art. XI. 1723) "that the German and the Hungarian hereditary possessions shall be governed indivisibly, inseparably, and by a common Government.' To be true to this, I demanded that there should be a Central Ministry of War, of Finance, and of Foreign Affairs I demanded, on the ground of its being just, and according to the sacred word of His Majesty, the equal rights of our nationality: I demanded the accomplishment of the promises made to and hopes entertained by the Servian nation in Hungary.

:

As the Hungarian Minister-President would not agree to any compact on these bases, I had no resource but to await the decision of the Hungarian Diet upon our last conciliatory propositions.

But this most important question, upon the solution of which depended not only the welfare of Hungary, and all the populations belonging to the Hungarian Crown, but also the maintenance of the United Empire, this question never was brought under discussion, but on the contrary, the aggressions of the Hungarian Ministry still continued. Misguided sons of our own fatherland, under the protection of the Magyar party, laboured that material order in Croatia might be disturbed; in Slavonia, ministerial Commissaries backed by military force, constrained the populations to elect deputies for the Diet of Pesth; in Trieste a vessel is fitted out to disturb the Croatian Coast; another similarly equipped and armed pursues upon the Danube a work of wanton destruction; detachments of troops formed of the mobilized National Hungarian guard cross the frontier, and invade the territory subjected to the Banal authority; the most frightful war rages with increased terrors in the Banat; and in