and I, did
not come over in the Half Moon or the Mayflower. We stayed on in County
Donegal, Ireland, in the loins of our forefathers, content with poteen
and potatoes, stayed on until the Pilgrims had put down the Indians, the
Baptists, and the witches; until the Dutch had got all the furs this
side Lake Erie. [Laughter and applause.] By the way, what hands and feet
those early Knickerbockers had! In trading with the Indians it was fixed
that a Dutchman's hand weighed one pound and his foot two pounds in the
scales. But what puzzled the Indian was that no matter how big his pack
of furs, the Dutchman's foot was its exact weight at the opposite end of
the scale. Enormous feet the first Van--or De--or Stuy--had. [Continued
laughter.]

But in course of time, after the Pilgrims had come for freedom, the
Dutch for furs, Penn for a frock--a Quaker cut and color--we came, we
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, for what? Perhaps the king oppressed the
presbytery, or potatoes failed, or the tax on whiskey was doubled.
Anyway we came to stay: some of us in New England, some in the valleys
of Virginia, some in the mountains of North Carolina, others in New
York; but the greater part pushed out into Pennsylvania--as far away as
they could get from the Puritans and the Dutch--settled the great
Cumberland Valley; then, crossing the Alleghany Mountains, staked out
their farms on the banks of the Monongahela River, set up their stills,
built their meeting-houses, organized the presbytery--and, gentlemen,
the reputation of our Monongahela rye is unsurpassed to this day [long
applause], and our unqualified orthodoxy even now turns the stomach of a
modern Puritan and constrains Colonel Ingersoll[1] not to pray, alas!
but to swear. [Loud laughter.]

Mr. President, I hope General Porter will join me in claiming some
recognition for the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians from these sons of the
Puritans. For do you not know that your own man Bancroft says that the
first public voice in America for dissolving all connection with Great
Britain came not from the Puritans of New England, the Dutch of New
York, nor the planters of Virginia, but from the Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians? [Applause.] Therefore, Mr. President, be kind enough to
accept from us the greeting of the Scotch-Irish of Pennsylvania, our
native State--that prolific mother of pig-iron and coal, whose favorite
and greatest sons are still Albert Gallatin, of Switzerland, and
Benjamin Franklin, of M