The Thames barge. It is a beautiful and graceful craft some thirty feet long. It bears an inscription reciting the wager and prize, and the names of the oarsmen, and the fact that it was presented to Lafayette. The vanquished Englishmen offered the victors three thousand dollars for the boat. It is evidently a favorite among the multitude of American presents which meet your eye everywhere. He has built a house over it, with a substantial tiled roof, and enclosed by network' of iron, which excludes it even from the touch. He next walked with us through every department of his farming affairs, which are in the most perfect order. He showed an entire familiarity with the whole, and is passionately fond of the pursuit. His horses, cattle, sheep, and swine, were all housed and taken care of in the most systematic manner. I could not but mark the economy which prevailed. Even the acorns were all hoarded as food for the swine. farm attached to the chateau contains about eight hundred acres. Besides this he has another and larger farm in the south of France. George Washington Lafayette resides there during the summer and takes charge of it. The care of La Grange is intrusted to one superintendent. Regular daily accounts are kept, and these are carefully posted and examined every Saturday. A portion of the concern, such as the dairy, &c., and the use of what is required in the family is subject to the supervision of his daughters. I was struck by the homage paid him by every domestic and laborer. It was merited, for his manner toward them was parental. It was three o'clock when we completed this interesting survey. The morning's conversation ended with the exhibition of his museum of American presents, among which I remarked he was particularly pleased with the vase presented to him by the officers of the Brandywine, and the volume published at New York in commemoration of his visit. But I ought not to forget to say that the general told me to tell the Whitehallers, that "he had their boat safe, and it would last longer than he would." At dinner he descanted to his family in glowing terms upon the homage universally exhibited in America to the soldiers of the Revolution, as witnessed by him on public occasions. We have taken leave of this most interesting family, and to-morrow morning at six o'clock will bid farewell for ever to La Grange, the most endearing spot in France, and that one which will live the greenest in all our recollections of this hurried but delightful On parting with the general, I said to him that we had a long time anticipated his return to America to spend the evening of his days there. "My dear sir," replied he, "I should be very sorry to think I shall never again see America, but you know how it is. I am confined to France for two or three years to come, by my office as a member of the house of deputies, and what may happen within that time God only knows." SPEECHES IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE.* CONTINENTAL RIGHTS AND RELATIONS. JANUARY 26, 1858. MR. PRESIDENT: On the 23d day February, 1848, John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, who had completed a circle of public service filling fifty years, beginning with an inferior diplomatic function, passing through the chief magistracy, and closing with the trust of a representative in Congress, departed from the earth, certainly respected by mankind, and, if all posthumous honors are not insincere and false, deplored by his countrymen. On a fair and cloudless day in the month of June, 1850, when the loud and deep voice of wailing had just died away in the land, the senator from Michigan, of New England born, and by New England reared, the leader of a great party, not only here, but in the whole country, rose in the senate-chamber, and after complaining that a member of the family of that great statesman of the east, instead of going backward with a garment to cover his infirmities, had revealed them by publishing portions of his private diary, himself proceeded to read the obnoxious extracts. They showed the author's strong opinions, that by the federal compact the slaveholding class had obtained, and they had exercised, a controlling influence in the government of the country. Placing these extracts by the side of passages taken from the Farewell Address of Washington, the senator from Michigan said "He is unworthy the name of an American who does not feel at his heart's core the difference between the lofty patriotism and noble sentiments of one of these documents, and; but I *Continued from vol. i., p. 388. |