TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 117 



The City of New York, — The giant granary of Uncle Sam's farm, 

 whose sons are continually between the shafts of the plough of improve- 

 ment, and are the factors of the profits of the establishment. 



The President having called upon the Hon. W. B. Maclay, member of 

 Congress from the city of New York, he responded as follows : — 



Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen, — In obedience to the call you 

 have made upon me, I rise, but with great reluctance. After the feast of 

 reason, with which you have been regaled, it would be arrogance in me 

 even to disclaim any expectation of saying any thing worthy of your atten- 

 tion. Yet, as a native of the city of New York, interested in its prosperity, 

 and repeatedly honored by its confidence, — I ought not to hesitate to ex- 

 press the gratification I have felt at the sentiment just proposed, and more 

 especially at the manner in which it has been received by this numerous 

 and respectable auditory. Boston can well afford to compliment New 

 York. Whatever advantages of position, nature may have conferred upon 

 the latter, have almost become equalized by the proverbial enterprise of 

 New England, — an enterprise which has triumphed over every obstacle in 

 connecting this city with that portion of our country to which the Star of 

 Empire is so rapidly tending, — which has enabled your manufacturing 

 industry, yet in its infancy, to meet in the market any competitor ; and 

 which has sent out your sons over the whole Union, diffusing the intelli- 

 gence, and exemplifying the thrift, which has often been ridiculed, but has 

 always been respected, as lying at the foundation not only of individual, 

 but of national faith and prosperity. New York has her great Canal and 

 Aqueduct, — the one, mingling the waters of the Lakes with those of the 

 Atlantic ; the other, affording increased comfort and security to so large a 

 portion of our population, and both exhibiting, in so striking a manner, the 

 progress and the power of the City and State. But who here would feel 

 compensated even with these for the absence of those memorials of our 

 revolutionary history around him, presenting to the eye the most glorious 

 record of past, and a bright pledge of future patriotism? If, like one of 

 your distinguished guests, who, after so long an absence, has returned to 

 his native shores, I could call Boston my home, my whole frame would 

 dilate with the reflection, that to what distant point soever the adventurous 

 spirit of our people may carry the boundaries of the republic, they must 

 also carry with them the knowledge that here is the cradle where our infant 

 Liberty was rocked, and that, through all future time, hither the traveller 

 must come to behold the scenes, made memorable by an association with 

 all that is enkindling in our annals. When the inhabitants of the good old 

 town of Boston poured out their treasure like water, hesitated at no sacri- 

 fice for the common defence, — 



" And when shower'd 

 The death bolts deadliest the thinn'd files along, 

 Even where the thickest of war's tempest lower'd," 



