George Washington Lafayette, his
secretary, M. Levasseur (who wrote an account of the whole journey of
1824), and the official committee followed in carriages. The mayor
addressed the city's guest; and Lafayette's reply was the first of
many hundred appropriate and graceful speeches made by him during the
journey. There were many ceremonies; school children threw garlands of
flowers in his way; corner stones were laid by him; squares were
renamed for "General Lafayette" (as he assured everybody he preferred
to be called by that title), and societies made him and his son
honorary members for life.

Hundreds of invitations to visit different cities poured in. The whole
country must be traveled over to satisfy the eagerness of a grateful
nation. Are republics ungrateful? That can never be said of our own
republic after Lafayette's visit to the United States in 1824.

He set out for Boston by way of New Haven, New London, and Providence.
All along the way the farmers ran out from the fields, shouting
welcomes to the cavalcade, and children stood by the roadside decked
with ribbons on which the picture of Lafayette was printed. Always a
barouche with four white horses was provided to carry him from point
to point. It was not a bit of vanity on the part of Lafayette that he
was ever seen behind these steeds of snowy white. President Washington
had set the fashion. His fine carriage-horses he caused to be covered
with a white paste on Saturday nights and the next morning to be
smoothed down till they shone like silver. It was a wonderful sight
when that majestic man was driven to church--the prancing horses, the
outriders, and all. And when Lafayette came, nothing was too good for
him! The towns sent out the whitest horses harnessed to the best
coaches procurable,--cream color, canary color, or claret color,--for
the hero to be brought into town or sped upon his way departing.
Returning to New York by way of the Connecticut River and the Sound,
he found again a series of dinners and toasts, as well as a ball held
in Castle Garden, the like of which, in splendor and display, had
never before been thought of in this New World.

Lafayette left the festivity before it was ever in order to take the
boat, at two in the morning, to go up the Hudson River. He arose at
six to show his son and his secretary the place where Andre was
captured. As soon as the fog lifted, he described, in the most
enthusiastic manner, the Revolutionary