Faneuil Hall was clothed in the dark drapery of mourning, fitting to receive the body of one of the greatest of the many noble sons of the venerable Bay State.  Amid solemn dirges and appropriate ceremonies, the chairman of the Congressional Committee surrendered to a Committee from the Legislature of Massachusetts, the sacred remains they had accompanied from the capitol of the United States.—­

“Throughout the journey,” said the chairman, “there have been displayed manifestations of the highest admiration and respect for the memory of your late distinguished fellow-citizen.  In the large cities through which we expected to pass, we anticipated such demonstrations; but in every village and hamlet, at the humblest cottage which we passed, and from the laborers in the field, the same profound respect was testified by their uncovered heads.”

The Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature having thus received the body from its Congressional escort, in turn surrendered it to the keeping of the municipal authorities of Boston, for burial at Quincy.  This ceremony was performed by Mr. Buckingham, chairman of the Legislative Committee, in these impressive words:—­

“In the name and behalf of the Government and People of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, whose honored but humble servant I this day am, I consign to your faithful keeping, Mr. Mayor, the remains of John Quincy Adams—­all that was mortal of that venerable man, whose age and whose virtues had rendered him an object of intense interest and admiration to his country and to the world.  We place these sacred remains in your possession, to be conveyed to their appointed home—­to sleep in the sepulchre and with the dust of his fathers.”

Mr. Quincy, the Mayor, in accepting the guardianship conferred upon him in behalf of the city of Boston, replied in the following terms:—­

“There is something sublime in the scene that surrounds us.  An honored son of Massachusetts—­one who was educated by a signer of the Declaration of Independence—­one who heard the thunder of the great struggle for liberty on yonder hill, has, after a life of unparalleled usefulness and fidelity, fallen in the capitol of the country he served.  His remains were escorted here by delegates from every State in the Union.  They have passed over spots ever memorable in history.  They have everywhere been received with funeral honors.  They have reposed in the hall of independence.  They now lie in the cradle of liberty.  As a citizen of Massachusetts, I cannot but acknowledge our sense of the honor paid to her distinguished son.  Mourned by a nation at its capitol, attended by the representatives of millions to the grave, he has received a tribute to his memory unequalled among men.

“These remains now rest in the cradle of liberty.  It is their last resting-place on their journey home.  As a statesman’s, ’this is to them the last of earth!’ To-morrow they will be deposited in the peaceful church-yard of the village of his birth, there to be mourned, not as statesmen mourn for statesmen, but as friends mourn for friends.