50 



to other nations an idea of Vv'liat a people left to tliem- 

 selves can do. There was one thing that I wish we 

 should exhibit more extensively in the Paris Exhibition 

 than we do, and that is our people. I regret not that 

 so many of our people went abro ad ; I only regret that 

 there were not five, or ten, or twenty millions of them 

 to show themselves to the European nations. They 

 know but little of us across the water. A cultivated 

 European told me that Mr. Chambers of Edinburgh, the 

 celebrated publisher, ten of whose works are sold in 

 America to one in Great Sritain, said to him only a few 

 years ago, that he was surprised that a man of such de- 

 cent appearance should live in such a country as Amer- 

 ica. I remember, too, that the Moniteiir in Paris publish- 

 ed the fact that the Speaker of the House of Kepresenta- 

 tives, some years ago, was a negro. Perhaps he believes 

 it now, and may be that he foreshadow^ed the time that 

 is to come. But the fact shovv^s that in the capital of 

 France they knew very little of Americans, or of Amer- 

 ica, at that time. It is not the fault of European nations, 

 but our ov/n. Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted 

 with the opportunity of being here. If you are as much 

 pleased to see me as I am to look upon your faces, you 

 are in a comfortable condition. I regret I have not been 

 here in the discharge of public duties 5 but I have been 

 absent for some time, and have been living a sort of 

 checkered life of late ; but whether here or whether else- 

 where, let me assure you that the memory of the past of 

 Essex and Middlesex have always been and always will 

 be my pride. 



