HON. MARSHALL P. WILDER. 29 



brating. Washington and many of his contempora- 

 ries were still alive, and all the social and political ele- 

 vation which his great services and illustrious example 

 had inspired were resplendent in their noonday glory. 

 Franklin, the great mechanic and practical philoso- 

 pher, had lately died, and the maxims of prudence 

 which he had supplemented with a flood of wisdom 

 in all branches of public economy were diffusing 

 their influence throughout the country. Not only 

 was there no steamboat and no railroad, as our hon- 

 ored guest has said, but the steam-engine was but 

 little known, and Franklin and the scientists had 

 gone no further with electricity than to show that 

 it and lightning were the same. Boston was even 

 then a well-known commercial town, the most famous 

 on this continent. As the phrase goes, " her com- 

 merce whitened every sea " in reality ; and the long 

 voyages beyond the Capes, to the Indian Ocean 

 and to farther parts of the East, as well as to all 

 latitudes of the Pacific coast, were so exclusively 

 hers, that to the native traders in their localities 

 the names " American " and " Bostonian," were 

 synonymous. The enterprise and intelligence of 

 her business men, and their accumulated wealth 

 and the liberality with which it was dispensed and 

 enjoyed, gave them the distinctive title of " merchant 

 princes " : the only smack of royalty which they 

 would have tolerated even by implication. 



