“‘Yet gratifications still higher awaited me: in the wonders of creation and improvement that have met my enchanted eye; in the unparalleled and self-felt happiness of the people, in their rapid prosperity and insured security, public and private, in a practice of good order,—the appendage of true freedom,—and a national good sense,—the final arbiter of all difficulties,—I have had proudly to recognize a result of the republican principles for which we have fought, and a glorious demonstration to the most timid and prejudiced minds of the superiority, over degrading aristocracy or despotism, of popular institutions founded on the plain rights of man, and where the local rights of every section are preserved under a constitutional bond of union. The cherishing of that union between the states, as it has been the farewell entreaty of our great paternal Washington, and will ever have the dying prayer of every American patriot, so it has become the sacred pledge of the emancipation of the world, an object in which I am happy to observe that the American people, while they give the animating example of successful free institutions in return for an evil entailed upon them by Europe, and of which a liberal and enlightened sense is everywhere more and more generally felt, show themselves every day more anxiously interested. “‘And now, sir, how can I do justice to my deep and lively feelings for the assurances, most peculiarly valued, of your esteem and friendship; for your so very kind references to old times, to my beloved associates, to the vicissitudes of my life; for your affecting picture of the blessings poured by the several generations of the American people on the remaining days of a delighted veteran; for your affectionate remarks on this sad hour of separation, on the country of my birth, full, I can say, of American sympathies; on the hope so necessary to me of my seeing again the country that has deigned, near a half-century ago, to call me hers? I shall content myself, refraining from superfluous repetitions, at once, before you, sir, and this respected circle, to proclaim my cordial confirmation of every one of the sentiments which I have had daily opportunities publicly to utter; from the time when your venerable predecessor, my old brother in arms and friend, transmitted to me the honorable invitation of Congress; to this day, when you, my dear sir, whose friendly connection with me dates from your earliest youth, are going to consign me to the protection, across the Atlantic, of the heroic national flag, on board the splendid ship, the name of which has been not the least flattering and kind among the numberless favors conferred upon me. “‘God bless you, sir, and all who surround us. God bless the American people, each of their states, and the federal government. Accept this patriotic farewell of an overflowing heart; such will be its last throb when it ceases to beat.’”