And now, sir, let us hope that our distinguished friend, Amin Bey, may return home with some not less favorable impressions of our own land.  Of our enterprise, of our industry, of our immense material production, of our rapid progress in arts and improvements of every kind, of our vast territorial extent, he cannot fail to testify.  Let us hope that he may be able to speak also of internal order, of domestic tranquillity, of wise and just laws, faithfully administered and promptly obeyed, of a happy, contented, and united people, commending by their practice and example, as well as by their principles and precepts, the institutions under which they live.

The distinguished gentleman who preceded me [Mr. Webster], and whom I have been under the disadvantage of following in other scenes as well as here, has spoken of the Union of these States.  There is no language so strong or so emphatic, which even he can use, as to the importance of preserving that Union, which does not meet with a prompt and cordial echo in my own bosom.  To the eyes of Amin Bey, and to the eyes of all foreign nations, we are indeed but one country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  To them there is no Boston or New York, no Carolina or Louisiana.  Our commerce goes forth under one and the same flag, whether from the Bay of Massachusetts or from the “Golden Gate” of California.  Under that flag, it has been protected, prospered, and extended beyond example.  Under that flag, new fields are opening to it, and new triumphs are before it.  May our distinguished guest take home with him an assurance, founded upon all that he has seen and all that he has heard, of the resolution of us all, that the flag of our Union shall still and always remain one and the same, from ocean to ocean, untorn and untarnished, proof alike against everything of foreign assault and everything of domestic dissension! [Great applause.]

JOHN SERGEANT WISE

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

[Speech of John S. Wise at the eleventh annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 20, 1890.  The President, Willard Bartlett, occupied the chair.  He called upon Mr. Wise to speak to the toast, “Captain John Smith, the Ruler of Virginia, and Admiral of New England,” saying:  “It was not without a purpose that your committee arranged the order of speaking this evening.  I am sure that the gentlemen who have already addressed you will take it in good part, if I say we knew that, by putting one name at the end of the programme, we should be sure to hold the audience here till the doxology.  Now a speaker who bears the name of the first ruler of Virginia I ever knew anything about, will address you upon Virginia’s still earlier ruler, Captain John Smith.”]

MR. CHAIRMAN:—­It is one of the peculiarities of Americans, that they attempt to solve the unsolvable problem of successfully mixing gastronomy and oratory.