The tributes of America and the world to his honor and his name may be noted in the words of Lord Brougham, an eminent British statesman, who reflected the feeling of the nation against which he had waged a successful war: “It will be the duty of the historian, and the sage of all nations,” he said, “to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man, and, until time shall be no more, will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington.” The great nations having any sort of democratic ideal fully recognized the fact that in his death had passed away one of the great men of the earth. The English Channel fleet lowered their ships’ flags at half-mast in token of respect, and in the land of Napoleon, who was then master of France, there was crepe draped about all their standards. Talleyrand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and one of the greatest orators and statesmen, prepared a report to the French government in which he said: “A nation which some day will be a great nation, and which today is the wisest and happiest on the face of the earth, weeps at the bier of a man whose courage and genius contributed most to free it from bondage and elevated it to the rank of an independent and sovereign power. The regrets caused by the death of this great man, the memories aroused by these regrets, and a proper veneration for all that is held dear and sacred by mankind, impel us to give expression to our sentiments by taking part in an event which deprives the world of one of its brightest ornaments, and removes to the realm of history one of the noblest lives that ever honored the human race. “His own country now honors his memory with funeral ceremonies, having lost a citizen whose public actions and unassuming grandeur in private life were a living example of courage, wisdom and unselfishness; and France, which from the dawn of American Revolution hailed with hope a nation, hitherto unknown, that was discarding the vices of Europe, which foresaw all the glory that this nation would bestow on humanity, and the enlightenment of governments that would ensue from the novel character of the social institutions, and the new type of heroism, of which Washington and America were models for the world at large,--France, I repeat, should depart from established usages, and do honor to one whose fame is beyond comparison with that of others. The man who, among the decadence of modern ages, first dared believe that he could inspire degenerate nations with courage to rise to the level of republican virtues, lived for all nations and for all centuries.”