As I was saying, I do not intend to make you any formal speech, and I should not have come here had it not been that I think it the duty of every man who can say anything that affects the people, whether by his pen or by his tongue, to go anywhere where expression is given to the friendly feeling which it is the desire of all wise and all honest men, I think, to deepen between the two countries which you and I represent. You have been good enough, Mr. President, also to refer to my career as a diplomatist in England, and you were quite right in saying that it was my endeavor to maintain those relations--those friendly relations--and I hope not without some success. (_Cheers_.) But I cannot listen to this compliment, I cannot accept it, without saying that I was followed by an American representative who has the same feeling, and who has represented America as ably in my judgment as she was ever represented in England. (_Cheers_.) That reminds me that we have been rather remarkably represented here in England. If you look over the list of our Ministers you will find that we have had three Adamses, one after the other, grandfather, father and son--one of the most really striking instances of heredity I know of (_laughter_); and the last Mr. Adams wore at the Court of Queen Victoria, as he told me, the regalia in which his grandfather was robed when he made his bow before George III. as the first American Minister in England, and was, I am bound to say, very civilly received by His Majesty. (_Laughter._) Those are only three illustrations, but we have many others. We have had Galitz, for instance, a prominent American diplomatist--though he was not an American by birth, but was a naturalized Swiss.