_Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention_--When I received your invitation to appear for a moment before you I felt that what you asked could not involve any indelicacy, and as it offered me the only opportunity which I shall have to look into the faces of my Indiana Republican friends here assembled, I could not find it in my heart to deny myself the pleasure of spending a moment in your presence. [Applause.] This enthusiastic and kindly reception crowns a long series of friendly acts on the part of my Republican friends of Indiana. To have your confidence is very grateful to me, to be worthy of your confidence is the highest ambition I can set before me. [Applause.] Whatever may befall me, I feel that my fellow-citizens of Indiana have crowned me and made me forever their debtor. [Applause.] But I must not detain you from the business which has brought you here. [Cries of "Go on!"] Such an assemblage as this is characteristic of America. What you shall do to-day will influence the prosperity and welfare of the State. Such a meeting is a notable historical event. We have to-day transpiring in this country two other events that are attracting wide interest. At the chief seaport of our country that great Republican, and that great American, James G. Blaine, returns to his home. [Applause.] We shall not be disappointed, I hope, in hearing his powerful voice in Indiana before the campaign is old. [Applause.] Another scene attracts our solemn and even tearful interest, for while you are transacting your business here to-day a draped train is bearing from the place of his sojourn by the sea to the place of his interment at Washington the mortal part of Philip H. Sheridan. From the convention at Chicago we sent him our greetings and our earnest prayers for his restoration. To-day we mourn our hero dead. You called him then a favorite child of victory, and such he was. He was one of those great commanders who, upon the field of battle, towered a very god of war. [Applause.] He was one of those earnest fighters for his country who did not at the end of his first day's fight contemplate rest and recuperation for his own command. He rested and refreshed his command with the wine of victory, and found recuperation in the dispersion of the enemy that confronted him. [Great applause.] This gallant son of Ireland and America [great applause] has written a chapter in the art of war that will not fail to instruct and to develop, when the exigencies may come again, others who shall repeat in defence of our flag his glorious achievements. [Great applause.] And now, Mr. President, and gentlemen, I am sure the heat of this hall and the labors that are before you suggest to you, as they do to me, that I shall close these remarks and bid you good-by. [Great applause.] INDIANAPOLIS, AUGUST 14.