f 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 a 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 everyone 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."

As the last sentence of the farewell was pronounced, La Fay