Adieu, my dear Huger, I shall to the last moment of my life be wholly Yours, LAFAYETTE. The wish to revisit the land of his adoption was strong, but many years were to pass before it could be carried out. He was forty years old when he was liberated from Olmuetz, and he was sixty-seven when he paid his last visit to our shores. He little dreamed of the reception he was to find, for the whole American people were waiting to greet, with heart and soul, the man who, in his youth, had taken so noble a part in their struggle for freedom. He reached New York on the 16th of August, 1824. He came with modest expectation of some honorable attentions--nothing more. On the _Cadmus_ he asked a fellow-traveler about the cost of stopping at American hotels and of traveling in steamboats and by stage; of this his secretary, M. Levasseur, made exact note. He came to visit the interesting scenes of his youth and to enjoy a reunion with a few surviving friends and compatriots. Instead, he found a whole country arising with one vast impulse to do him honor. It was not mere formality; it was a burst of whole-souled welcome from an entire nation. So astonished was he, so overcome, to find a great demonstration awaiting him, where he had expected to land quietly and to engage private lodgings, that his eyes overflowed with tears. The harbor of New York was entered on a Sunday. He was asked to accept a sumptuous entertainment on Staten Island till Monday, when he could be received by the city with more honor. On that day citizens and officers, together with old Revolutionary veterans, attended him. Amid the shouting of two hundred thousand voices he reached the Battery. The band played "See the Conquering Hero Comes," the "Marseillaise," and "Hail, Columbia." Lafayette had never dreamed of such a reception or of such sweeps of applause. The simple-hearted loyalty of the American people had a chance to show itself, and their enthusiasm knew no bounds. Lafayette's face beamed with joy. Four white horses bore him to the City Hall, while his son, George Washington Lafayette, his secretary, M. Levasseur (who wrote an account of the whole journey of 1824), and the official committee followed in carriages. The mayor addressed the city's guest; and Lafayette's reply was the first of many hundred appropriate and graceful speeches made by him during the journey. There were many ceremonies; school children threw garlands of flowers in his way; corner stones were laid by him; squares were renamed for "General Lafayette" (as he assured everybody he preferred to be called by that title), and societies made him and his son honorary members for life.