commemoration of that event, on Bunker Hill. During his tour at the east, he visited the venerable ex-President John Adams, at Quincy.

But the time for his departure drew near. His journey had extended as far south as New Orleans, west to St. Louis, north and east to Massachusetts. He had passed through, or touched, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

A new frigate, the Brandywine, named in honor of the gallant exploits of Gen. La Fayette at the battle of Brandywine, was provided by Congress to convey him to France. It was deemed appropriate that he should take final leave of the nation at the seat of government in Washington. President Adams invited him to pass a few weeks in the presidential mansion. Mr. Adams had been on intimate terms with La Fayette in his youth, with whom, it is said, he was a marked favorite. During his sojourn at the capitol, he visited ex-Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, at their several places of residence.

Having paid his respects to these venerated sages, "the Nation's Guest" prepared to take his final departure from the midst of a grateful people. The 7th of September, 1825, was the day appointed for taking leave. About 12 o'clock, the officers of the General

Government, civil, military, and naval, together with the authorities of Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria, with multitudes of citizens and strangers, assembled in the President's house. La Fayette entered the great hall in silence, leaning on the Marshal of the District, and one of the sons of the President. Mr. Adams then with evident emotion, but with much. dignity and firmness, addressed him in the following

terms:

"GENERAL LA FAYETTE: It has been the good fortune of many of my fellow-citizens, during the course of the year now elapsed, upon your arrival at their respective places of abode to greet you with the welcome of the nation. The less pleasing task now devolves upon me, of bidding you, in the name of the nation, ADIEU!

"It were no longer seasonable, and would be superfluous, to recapitulate the remarkable incidents of your early life-incidents which associated your name, fortunes, and reputation, in imperishable connection with the independence and history of the North American Union.

"The part which you performed at that important juncture was marked with characters so peculiar, that, realizing the fairest fable of antiquity, its parallel could scarcely be found in the authentic records of human history.

"You deliberately and perseveringly preferred toil, danger, the endurance of every hardship, and privation of every comfort, in defence of a holy cause, to inglorious ease, and the allurements of rank, affluence, and unrestrained youth, at the most splendid and fascinating court of Europe.

"That this choice was not less wise than magnanimous, the sanction of half a century, and the gratulations of unnumbered voices, all unable to express the gratitude of the heart, with which your visit to this hemisphere has been welcomed, afford ample demon

stration.

"When the contest of freedom, to which you had repaired as a voluntary champion, had closed, by the complete triumph of her

cause in this country of your adoption, you returned to fulfil the duties of the philanthropist and patriot, in the land of your nativity. There, in a consistent and undeviating career of forty years, you have maintained, through every vicissitude of alternate success and disappointment, the same glorious cause to which the first years of your active life had been devoted, the improvement of the moral and political condition of man.

"Throughout that long succession of time, the people of the United States, for whom and with whom you have fought the battles of liberty, have been living in the full possession of its fruits; one of the happiest among the family of nations. Spreading in population; enlarging in territory; acting and suffering according to the condition of their nature; and laying the foundations of the greatest, and, we humbly hope, the most beneficient power, that ever regulated the concerns of man upon earth.

"In that lapse of forty years, the generation of men with whom you co-operated in the conflict of arms, has nearly passed away. Of the general officers of the American army in that war, you alone survive. Of the sages who guided our councils; of the warriors who met the foe in the field, or upon the wave, with the exception of a few to whom unusual length of days has been alloted by Heaven, all now sleep with their fathers. A succeeding, and even a third generation, have arisen to take their places; and their children's children, while rising up to call them blessed, have been taught by them, as well as admonished by their own constant enjoyment of freedom, to include in every benison upon their fathers, the name of him, who came from afar, with them and in their cause to conquer or to fall.

"The universal prevalence of these sentiments was signally manifested by a resolution of Congress, representing the whole people, and all the States of this Union, requesting the President of the United States to communicate to you the assurances of the grateful and affectionate attachment of this government and people, and desiring that a national ship might be employed, at your convenience, for your passage to the borders of our country.

"The invitation was transmitted to you by my venerable predecessor, himself bound to you by the strongest ties of personal friendship; himself one of those whom the highest honors of his country had rewarded for blood early shed in her cause, and for a long life of

devotion to her welfare. By him the services of a national ship were placed at your disposal. Your delicacy preferred a more private conveyance, and a full year has elapsed since you landed upon our shores. It were scarcely an exaggeration to say that it has been to the people of the Union a year of uninterrupted festivity and enjoyment, inspired by your presence. You have traversed the twenty-four States of this great confederacy-you have been received with rapture by the survivors of your earliest companions in arms-you have been hailed, as a long-absent parent, by their children, the men and women of the present age; and a rising generation, the hope of future time, in numbers surpassing the whole population of that day when you fought at the head and by the side of their forefathers, have vied with the scanty remnants of that hour of trial, in acclamations of joy, at beholding the face of him whom they feel to be the common benefactor of all. You have heard the mingled voices of the past, the present, and the future age, joining in one universal chorus of delight at your approach; and the shouts of unbidden thousands, which greeted your landing on the soil of freedom, have followed every step of your way, and still resound like the rushing of many waters, from every corner of our land.

"You are now about to return to the country of your birth-of your ancestors of your posterity. The executive Government of the Union, stimulated by the same feeling which had prompted the Congress to the designation of a national ship for your accommodation in coming hither, has destined the first service of a frigate, recently launched at this metropolis, to the less welcome, but equally distinguished trust, of conveying you home. The name of the ship has added one more memorial to distant regions and to future ages, of a stream already memorable at once in the story of your sufferings and of our independence.

sea.

"The ship is now prepared for your reception, and equipped for From the moment of her departure, the prayers of millions will ascend to heaven, that her passage may be prosperous, and your return to the bosom of your family as propitious to your happiness as your visit to this scene of your youthful glory has been to that of the American people.

"Go then, our beloved friend: return to the land of brilliant genius, of generous sentiments, of heroic valor; to that beautiful France, the nursing mother of the twelfth Louis, and the fourth

Henry; to the native soil of Bayard and Coligne, of Turenne and Catinat, of Fenelon and D'Aguesseau! In that illustrious catalogue of names, which she claims as of her children, and with honest pride holds up to the admiration of other nations, the name of LA FAYETTE has already for centuries been enrolled. And it shall henceforth burnish into brighter fame: for, if in after days, a Frenchman shall be called to indicate the character of his nation by that of one individual, during the age in which we live, the blood of lofty patriotism shall mantle in his cheek, the fire of conscious virtue shall sparkle in his eye, and he shall pronounce the name of LA FAYETTE. Yet we, too, and our children in life, and after death, shall claim you for our own. You are ours, by that more than patriotic self-devotion with which you flew to the aid of our fathers at the crisis of their fate ours by that long series of years in which you have cherished us in your regard: ours by that unshaken sentiment of gratitude for your services, which is a precious portion of our inheritance: ours by that tie of love, stronger then death, which has linked your name, for the endless ages of time, with the name of WASHINGTON.

"At the painful moment of parting from you, we take comfort in the thought, that wherever you may be, to the last pulsation of your heart, our country will ever be present to your affections; and a cheering consolation assures us that we are not called to sorrow, most of all, that we shall see your face no more. We shall indulge the pleasing anticipation of beholding our friend again. In the mean time, speaking in the name of the whole people of the United States, and at a loss only for language to give utterance to that feeling of attachment with which the heart of the nation beats, as beats the heart of one man-I bid you a reluctant and affectionate FAREWELL!!

At the conclusion of this address, Gen. La Fayette replied as follows::

"Amidst all my obligations to the General Government, and particularly to you, sir, its respected Chief Magistrate, I have most thankfully to acknowledge the opportunity given me, at this solemn and painful moment, to present the people of the United States with a parting tribute of profound, inexpressible gratitude.