This is part of a series on Lafayette’s visit to New England – June 13 to June 29 1825.
Lafayette was received by the legislature at 10:15 AM. Lafayette came in preceded by the Committee of Arrangements supported by the Mister Winthrop and Mr. King. Governor Lincoln addressed the General as follows:
“General Lafayette: The immediate representatives or the people of Massachusetts, in the executive and legislative departments of the government, have assembled on this occasion to offer you their cordial congratulations on your return in health and safety to the capital of this commonwealth, and in the name or their constituents to repeat to you the assurance of respectful and affectionate interest with which they shall ever regard your presence among them.
Your arrival in the country, on this happy visit to your American brethren, was greeted by them with expressions of the liveliest satisfaction and joy. Your own observations since will bear faithful witness how true are their hearts to the language of salutation with which they first welcomed you.
The population which has crowded your pathway, the prosperity which has smiled along your progress in your tour through the Union, are but the fruits of events in which you so largely and gloriously participated. The remembrance of your early sacrifices in the cause of this country has excited to the deepest sense of public obligation, and the breasts of millions of freemen will never cease to swell with gratitude in the recognition of your services, most generously and effectually rendered to an oppressed and suffering people. A nation, just to itself, cannot be indifferent to the fame of its benefactors; and while Liberty is dear to the enjoyment of Americans, the names of those who fought in its defense will be associated with every memorial of the scenes through which it became triumphant.
In offering to you, General, the congratulations of the government upon your present visit, I have the highest personal gratification in further executing the pleasure of the Legislature by tendering to you “the hospitalities of the Commonwealth” during its continuance.”
Lafayette replied:
“Sir: The honor conferred upon me by the immediate representatives of the State of Massachusetts in the legislative and executive branches, at the same time it fills my heart with the most lively and the deepest sentiments of gratitude, recalls to my mind recollections equally grateful and endearing; and while I am so kindly welcomed by your Excellency in this splendid State House, I remember the remote times when similar favors have been received on the floor of Faneuil Hall – the consecrated cradle of American, and I fondly hope of universal liberty.
In the long and happy series of visits through the several parts of the Union to which you have been pleased to allude, Bunker Hill has ever been my polar star, and I now rejoice to be arrived in time to join, on the grand half-century jubilee, with my companions in arms, as being together the representative of the early and unshaken devotion of our Revolutionary Army, of the patriotic wishes of such of us as are still on this land, of the dying prayers of those who are no more; and permit me here, sir, most deeply to mourn the recent loss of my two friends, Ex-Governor Brooks and Governor Eustis, your respected predecessors, after a long absence to receive from the people of this State, and in this beloved city of Boston, which I never entered without feeling the warm emotions of affection and gratitude.
While I have had continually to admire the rapid wonders of creation and improvement that have been the result of independence, freedom, and those republican institutions which alone are equal to support the weight and display the faculties of an extensive empire, I have particularly delighted in the sentiments of fellow feeling and mutual affection whereby the people of every part of the confederacy are strongly attached to an union on which resides the safety of these States and the hope of mankind.
I beg, sir, the gentlemen of the two houses of the honorable Legislature and your Excellency to accept my respectful thanks and cordial devotion.”
“Strangers of distinction” having special seating included Mr. Barbour, Secretary of War, Colonel McLane of Delaware, Colonel Dwight, Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Fisk, General Courtland and Colonel Stone of New York.
The inside galleries and back seats of the floor of the House were occupied by ladies and the upper gallery, the windows and avenues were thronged with spectators.
At 1:00PM members of the different branches of state and city government waited on the General at the residence of Senator James Lloyd who gave an entertainment. Lafayette was lodging there.
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For information on the bicentennial of Lafayette’s tour check out Lafayette200.org