Page:Republican Court by Rufus Griswold.djvu/154

factor. ... Farewell! Go, and make a grateful people happy: a people who will be doubly grateful when they contemplate this new sacrifice for their interests." In his reply be said, "Just after having bade adieu to my domestic connections, this tender proof of your friendship is but too well calculated to awaken still further my sensibility, and increase my regret at parting from the enjoyments of private life. All that now remains for me is to commit myself and you to the care of that beneficent Being, who, on a former occasion, happily brought us together after a long and distressing separation. Perhaps the same gracious Providence will again indulge me. But words fail me. Unutterable sensations must, then, be left to more expressive silence, while from an aching heart I bid all my affectionate friends and kind neighbors farewell."

He was welcomed to Maryland by a collection of citizens assembled at Georgetown, and from all the principal places along his way the leading inhabitants came out to meet him, and to welcome him with the firing of cannon, the ringing of bells, and military displays. Every where men and women of all ages and conditions watched to see him as he passed along the road. Old men shedding tears as their enthusiasm was rekindled by his presence, and mothers holding up their infant children that they might be able to say when their lives should be near then' ending that they had looked with their own eyes upon the Father of his Country.

He arrived in Baltimore in the beginning of the evening, and retired from the public supper at Grant's tavern a little after ten o'clock. On the following morning he was in his carriage at half-past five, and left the city under a discharge of cannon, and attended, as on his entrance, by a large cavalcade of citizens, who accompanied him seven miles, when, alighting, he would not permit them to proceed any farther, but took leave, thanking them in an affectionate manner for their politeness.