It would be to trespass on your kindness and to violate the proprieties of the occasion were I to detain the vast concourse which stands before me by entering on the discussion of controverted topics, or by further indulging in the expression of such reflections as circumstances suggest. I came to your city in quest of health and repose. From the moment I entered it you have showered upon me kindness and hospitality. Though my experience has taught me to anticipate good rather than evil from my fellow-man, it had not prepared me to expect such unremitting attention as has here been bestowed. I have been jocularly asked in relation to my coming here, whether I had secured a guarantee for my safety, and lo! I have found it. I stand in the midst of thousands of my fellow-citizens. But, my friends, I came neither distrusting nor apprehensive, of which you have proof in the fact that I brought with me the objects of tenderest affection and solicitude, my wife and my children; they have shared with me your hospitality, and will alike remain your debtors. If, at some future time, when I am mingled with the dust, and the arm of my infant son has been nerved for deeds of manhood, the storm of war should burst upon your city, I feel that, relying upon his inheriting the instincts of his ancestors and mine, I may pledge him in that perilous hour to stand by your side in the defense of your hearth-stones, and in maintaining the honor of a flag whose constellation, though torn and smoked in many a battle by sea and land, has never been stained with dishonor, and will, I trust, forever fly as free as the breeze which unfolds it. A stranger to you, the salubrity of your location, and the beauty of its scenery were not wholly unknown to me, nor were there wanting associations which busy memory connected with your people. You will pardon me for alluding to one whose genius shed a lustre upon all it touched, and whose qualities gathered about him hosts of friends wherever he was known. Prentiss, a native of Portland, lived from youth to middle age in the county of my residence; and the inquiries which have been made show me that the youth excited the interest which the greatness of the man justified, and that his memory thus remains a link to connect your home with mine. A cursory view, when passing through your town on former occasions, had impressed me with the great advantages of your harbor, its easy entrance, its depth, and its extensive accommodations for shipping. But its advantages and its facilities, as they have been developed by closer inspection, have grown upon me, until I realize that it is no boast, but the language of sober truth, which, in the present state of commerce, pronounces them unequaled in any harbor of our country.