From New York La Fayette proceeded on a tour throughout the United States.  Everywhere he was received and honored, as “The nation’s guest.”  For more than a year, his journey was a complete ovation—­a perpetual and splendid pageant.  The people appeared delirious with joy and with anxiety to hail him, grasp him by the hand, and shower attentions and honors upon him.  The gratitude and love of all persons, of every age, sex, and condition, seemed hardly to be restrained within bounds of propriety.  As he passed through the country, every city, village, and hamlet, poured out its inhabitants en masse, to meet him.  Celebrations, processions, dinners, illuminations, bonfires, parties, balls, serenades, and rejoicings of every description, attended his way, from the moment he set foot on the American soil, until his embarkation to return to his native France.

The hearts of the people in the most distant parts of the Western Hemisphere were warmed and touched with the honors paid him in the United States.  A letter written at that time from Buenos Ayres, says—­“I have just received newspapers from the United States, informing me of the magnificent reception of Gen. La Fayette.  I have never read newspapers with such exquisite delight as these; and I firmly believe there never was so interesting and glorious an event in the civilized world, in which all classes of people participated in the general joy, as on this occasion.  There is an association of ideas connected with this event, that produces in my soul emotions I cannot express, and fills my heart with such grateful recollections as I cannot forget but with my existence.  That ten millions of souls, actuated by pure sentiments of gratitude and friendship, should with one voice pronounce this individual the ’Guest of the Nation,’ and pay him the highest honors the citizens of a free nation can offer, is an event which must excite the astonishment of Europe, and show the inestimable value of liberty.”

In June, 1825, La Fayette visited Boston, and on the 17th day of that month, it being the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, he participated in the ceremony of laying the corner stone of the monument in commemoration of that event, on Bunker Hill.  During his tour at the east, he visited the venerable ex-President John Adams, at Quincy.

But the time for his departure drew near.  His journey had extended as far south as New Orleans, west to St. Louis, north and east to Massachusetts.  He had passed through, or touched, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

A new frigate, the Brandywine, named in honor of the gallant exploits of Gen. La Fayette at the battle of Brandywine, was provided by Congress to convey him to France.  It was deemed appropriate that he should take final leave of the nation at the seat of government in Washington.  President Adams invited him to pass a few weeks in the presidential mansion.  Mr. Adams had been on intimate terms with La Fayette in his youth, with whom, it is said, he was a marked favorite.  During his sojourn at the capitol, he visited ex-Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, at their several places of residence.