In New York the Frenchman visited the widow of General Montgomery and Mrs. Alexander Hamilton. He found some old friends in Philadelphia and Baltimore. In Boston he saw again the venerable John Adams, who had been the second President of the country. He went to Thomas Jefferson’s home of Monticello in Virginia, and passed some days with the man whom he revered almost as much as he did Washington. With Jefferson he talked over the lessons that were to be learned from the French Revolution and the career of Napoleon. And he met foreigners in the United States who called to mind the recent eventful days in his own land. He visited Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother, at Bordentown in New Jersey. At Baltimore he found Dubois Martin, the man who as secretary to the Duke de Broglie had helped Lafayette to secure the ship in which he had first sailed to America. And at Savannah he discovered Achille Murat, the son of Joachim, the ex-king of Naples, one of the men Napoleon had placed upon a temporary throne, and learned that Murat was now cultivating an orange-orchard in Florida. A man named Haguy came one hundred and fifty miles to see the General, and proved to be one of the sailors who had crossed on the _Victory_ with him and had later fought under him in the Continental Army. Here and there he found veterans of his campaign in Virginia, and Lafayette was as glad to see his old soldiers as they were to welcome him. Before he left for Europe John Quincy Adams, the son of the second President, was elected to succeed Monroe. The new President invited Lafayette to dine at the White House in company with the three ex-Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, all of them old and trusted friends of the Frenchman. What a dinner that must have been, with five such men at the table! Perhaps the thing that delighted him most in America was the self-reliant independence that marked the people everywhere. This type of democracy was most inspiring to a man who had seen the constant turmoil and bickerings of the Revolution and Napoleonic era in France. America was young and her citizens were too busy developing their country to pay much attention to class distinctions or the social ambitions that were so prominent in Europe. They felt quite able to run their government to suit themselves, and it seemed to Lafayette that they were working out their problems in a most satisfactory manner. In 1824 he witnessed a Presidential election with four candidates, Adams, Jackson, Clay, and Crawford. Party feelings ran high, and there was great excitement. But when the election was over the people settled down to their work again in remarkable harmony and the government continued its course serenely. This Lafayette, with his knowledge of other countries, regarded as evidence of a most unusual genius for self-control in the American nation.