“Sir:—­I am charged with the very honorable and most agreeable duty, of expressing to you the reverence and affectionate esteem of my fellow-citizens, assembled in your presence.

“A change has come over the spirit of your journey, since your steps have turned towards your ancestral sea-side home.  An excursion to invigorate health impaired by labors, too arduous for age, in the public councils, and expected to be quiet and contemplative, has become one of fatigue and excitement.  Rumors of your advance escape before you, and a happy and grateful community rise up in their clustering cities, towns, and villages, impede your way with demonstrations of respect and kindness, and convert your unpretending journey into a triumphal progress.  Such honors frequently attend public functionaries, and such an one may sometimes find it difficult to determine how much of the homage he receives is paid to his own worth, how much proceeds from the habitual reverence of good republican citizens to constituted elective authority, and how much from the spirit of venal adulation.

“You, sir, labor under no such embarrassment.  The office you hold, though honorable, is purely legislative, and such as we can bestow by our immediate suffrage on one of ourselves.  You conferred personal benefits sparingly when you held the patronage of the nation.  That patronage you have relinquished, and can never regain.  Your hands will be uplifted often, during your remaining days, to invoke blessings on your country, but never again to distribute honors or reward among your countrymen.  The homage paid you, dear sir, is sincere, for it has its sources in the just sentiments and irrepressible affections of a free people, their love of truth, their admiration of wisdom, their reverence for virtue, and their gratitude for beneficence.

“Nor need you fear that enthusiasm exaggerates your title to the public regard.  Your fellow-citizens, in spite of political prudence, could not avoid honoring you on grounds altogether irrespective of personal merit.  John Adams, who has gone to receive the reward of the just, was one of the most efficient and illustrious founders of this Empire, and afterwards its Chief Ruler.  The son of such a father would, in any other age, and even in this age, in any other country than this, have been entitled, by birth alone, to a sceptre.  We not merely deny hereditary claims to civil trust, but regard even hereditary distinction with jealousy.  And this circumstance enhances justly the estimate of your worth.  For when before has it happened that in such a condition of society the son has, by mere civic achievement, attained the eminence of such a sire, and effaced remembrance of birth by justly acquired renown?