In 1863 Mr. Beecher made a single speech in Great Britain, as Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, but it was delivered in piecemeal in different places. Its exordium was on the 9th of October, in Manchester; its peroration was pronounced on the 20th of the same month in Exeter Hall, London. The public is more or less familiar with the result of that mission. After a few months’ absence he returned to America, having finished a more remarkable embassy than any envoy who has represented us in Europe since Franklin pleaded the cause of the young Republic at the court of Versailles. He had no official existence; but through the heart of the people he reached nobles, ministers, courtiers, and the throne itself. He whom _The Times_ attacked, he whom _Punch_ caricatured, was a power in the land. The change of the ruling classes in England, who were strong for the South, was at once manifest. As Mr. Scott, who introduced him in Exeter Hall, told me years later: “You should have been here to witness the effect of that speech as he swayed his enthusiastic audience hither and thither by his convincing arguments and appeal.” I was a soldier at that time, commanding a battalion of cavalry on the frontier of southwestern Missouri, Kansas, and the Indian country, but I read with eagerness of the great achievements of Mr. Beecher in England. We soldiers looked upon Beecher at home as Beecher in the field. He sharpened the swords, ran the bullets, and forged the cannon. His speeches read by the soldiers made Spartans out of the most timid. He inspired, encouraged, and electrified as no one else could. During all our travels and associations together in this country my anxiety and determination to have Mr. Beecher heard again in England became more and more intense. I never could get much encouragement until the spring of 1886, when, after much deliberation and urging by friends, he told me to go ahead. I immediately engaged passage from New York on Saturday morning, June 19. At that eventful Friday evening prayer-meeting, the evening before Mr. and Mrs. Beecher sailed, both the lecture-room and the auditorium were crowded. When the great overflow asked Mr. Beecher if they could not go into the auditorium, he replied: “No; this is our prayer-meeting room, where we have met on Friday evenings for forty years, and I do not feel like making this evening an exception.” The overflow filled the main auditorium with members and friends waiting to say good-by to Mr. and Mrs. Beecher. The ship left the wharf at 6 o’clock on the morning of the 19th, her decks crowded with passengers not yet aware of Mr. Beecher’s presence; but as he stood almost alone on the forecastle deck, leaning on the rail, his well-known form attracted attention of people on the ferry-boats, and simultaneously the whistles of tugboats and other neighboring craft were sounded in salute.