It was a very great thing for France to make the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with a nation that, as yet, had received no acceptance from the powers of the earth. And when we remember that France, in the contests of a thousand years, had found England no unequal match in the quarrels that belonged to the two nations, I must think that human history has shown nothing nobler than her espousal of this growing struggle between these colonists and the great power of England. [Applause.] How much nearer France was to England than we! How much wider her possessions through the world, open to the thunders of the British navy and the prowess of the British arms! And when France, in a treaty, the equal terms of which will strike every reader with wonder, speaks of the "common cause" to be pursued until the result of our complete independence, governmental and commercial, was attained, I know nothing in the way of the "bearing the burdens of one another," enjoined as the Christian spirit, that is greater than this stupendous action of France. [Applause.] The relations of blood and history that make England and us one, as we always shall be, do not, nevertheless, make it clear that there is not a closer feeling of attachment, after all, between us and France. It is a very great compliment, no doubt, in classical phrase, to bespoken of as "_matre pulchra filia pulchrior"_--the fairer daughter of a fair mother, but, after all, it is a greater compliment to the daughter than to the mother. I don't know that maternal affection, the purest sentiment on earth, is ever quite pleased that the daughter is taller and fairer and more winning in her ways than the mother is, or ever was [laughter]; and I do know that there comes a time when the daughter leaves the mother and cleaves to a closer affection. And here were we, a young, growing, self-conscious, self-possessed damsel, just peeping from out our mother's apron, when there comes a gallant and noble friend, who takes up our cause, and that, too, at a time when it was not quite apparent whether we should turn out a beauty or a hoyden. [Laughter and applause.] And that is our relation to France. Nothing can limit, nothing can disturb it; nothing shall disparage it. It is that we, from that time and onward, and now finally in the great consummation of two Republics united together against the world, represent in a new sense Shakespeare's figure of the "unity and married calm of states." [Applause.]