“‘The vain wish has been sometimes indulged that Providence would allow the patriot after death to return to his country and to contemplate the intermediate changes which had taken place,—to view the forests felled, the cities built, the mountains levelled, the canals cut, the highways constructed, the progress of the arts, the advancement of learning, and the increase of population. General, your present visit to the United States is a realization of the consoling object of that wish. You are in the midst of posterity. Everywhere you must have been struck with the great changes, physical and moral, which have occurred since you left us. Even this very city, bearing a venerated name, alike endeared to you and to us, has since emerged from the forest which then covered its site. In one respect you behold us unaltered, and this is in the sentiment of continued devotion to liberty, and of ardent affection and profound gratitude to your departed friend, the father of his country, and to you, and to your illustrious associates in the field and the cabinet, for the multiplied blessings which surround us, and for the very privilege of addressing you which I now exercise. This sentiment, now fondly cherished by more than ten millions of people, will be transmitted, with unabated vigor, down the tide of time through the countless millions who are destined to inhabit the continent to the latest posterity.’ “While the speaker was addressing him, General La Fayette was very visibly affected. At the close of the address he seated himself for a moment to regain composure, and then rose, and in tones made thrilling by intense feeling, he made the following reply:— “‘MR. SPEAKER, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: While the people of the United States and their honorable representatives in Congress have deigned to make a choice of me, one of the American veterans, to signify in his person their esteem for our joint services and their attachment to the principles for which we have had the honor to fight and bleed, I am proud and happy to share those extraordinary favors with my dear Revolutionary companions; yet it would be, on my part, uncandid and ungrateful not to acknowledge my personal share in those testimonies of kindness, as they excite in my breast emotions which no words are adequate to express. “‘My obligations to the United States, sir, far exceed any merit I might claim; they date from the time when I had the happiness to be adopted as a young soldier a favored son of America; they have been continued to me during almost a half-century of constant affection and confidence; and now, sir, thanks to your most gratifying invitation, I find myself greeted by a series of welcomes, one hour of which would more than compensate for the public exertions and sufferings of a whole life.