“In a few moments General La Fayette entered the house, supported on his right by Mr. Mitchell, the chairman of the select committee, and on his left by Mr. Livingston, and followed by the committee. The speaker and members then arose, and the procession advanced towards the centre of the house. Mr. Mitchell introduced La Fayette in the following words:— “‘MR. SPEAKER: The select committee, appointed for that purpose, have the honor to introduce General La Fayette to the House of Representatives.’ “The general was then conducted to the sofa placed for his reception, when the speaker, Mr. Clay, addressed him in the following words:— “‘GENERAL: The House of Representatives of the United States, impelled alike by its own feelings and by those of the whole American people, could not have assigned to me a more gratifying duty than that of presenting to you cordial congratulations upon the occasion of your recent arrival in the United States, in compliance with the wishes of Congress; and to assure you of the very high satisfaction which your presence affords on this early theatre of your glory and renown. Although but few of the members who compose this body shared with you in the war of our Revolution, all have, from impartial history, or from faithful tradition, a knowledge of the perils, the sufferings, and the sacrifices which you voluntarily encountered, and the signal services, in America and in Europe, which you performed for an infant, a distant, and an alien people; and all feel and own the very great extent of the obligations under which you have placed our country. But the relations in which you have ever stood to the United States, interesting and important as they have been, do not constitute the only motive of the respect and admiration which the House of Representatives entertain for you. Your consistency of character, your uniform devotion to regulated liberty, in all the vicissitudes of a long and arduous life, also commands its admiration. During all the recent convulsions of Europe, amidst, as after the dispersion of every political storm, the people of the United States have beheld you, true to your old principles, firm and erect, cheering and animating, with your well-known voice, the votaries of liberty, its faithful and fearless champion, ready to shed the last drop of that blood which here you so freely and nobly spilt in the same holy cause.