It would be to trespass on your kindness and to violate the
proprieties of the occasion, were I to detain the vast concourse which
stands before me, by entering on the discussion of controverted
topics, or by further indulging in the expression of such reflections
as circumstances suggest.

I came to your city in quest of health and repose. From the moment I
entered it you have showered upon me kindness and hospitality. Though
my experience has taught me to anticipate good rather than evil from
my fellow man, it had not prepared me to expect such unremitting
attention as has here been bestowed. I have been jocularly asked in
relation to my coming here, whether I had secured a guaranty {sic} for
my safety, and lo, I have found it. I stand in the midst of thousands
of my fellow citizens. But my friend, I came neither distrusting, not
apprehensive, of which you have proof in the fact that I brought with
me the objects of tenderest affection and solicitude--my wife and my
children; they have shared with me your hospitality, and will alike
remain your debtors. If at some future time, when I am mingled with
the dust, and the arm of my infant son has been nerved for deeds of
manhood, the storm of war should burst upon your city, I feel that,
relying upon his inheriting the instincts of his ancestors and mine, I
may pledge him in that perilous hour to stand by your side in the
defence of your hearth stones, and in maintaining the honor of a flag
whose constellation though torn and smoked in many a battle, by sea
and land, has never been stained with dishonor, and will I trust
forever fly as free as the breeze which unfolds it.

A stranger to you, the salubrity of your location and the beauty of
its scenery were not wholly unknown to me, nor were there wanting
associations which bust memory connected with your people. You will