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"In the days of his country's dangers and trials he nobly did his duty. His highest honor was, that during the darkest hour he did not despair of the Republic. General Grant's achievements would fill a large and glowing page in the history of his native land, and no inconsiderable one in the history of our times. His position as a soldier and a statesman was fixed, and there was not now time, and this was not the occasion, to dilate on it. He had won the confidence of his contemporaries and secured the encomiums of posterity. The world had often spoken with admiration of his valor and his resolution-of his courage and ability. He had no wish to underrate or overlook these virtues; but to-night he would speak of his modesty and magnanimity. He knew of nothing more touching than the gentleness with which General Grant conveyed a necessary, but at the same time a hasty and unpleasant command, from the American War Minister to his brave companion-in-arms, General Sherman, nor more generous than his dignified treatment of the vanquished Confederate captain-a foeman worthy of his steel. These actions reminded us of the fabled days of chivalry. The only incident in modern warfare to be compared to them was the conduct of our own manly Outram toward the gallant Havelock on the eve of the fate of Lucknow. On the questions involved in the great conflict in which our illustrious guest played so decisive a part, there were wide differences of opinion amongst us. We all followed his career with interest and with admiration-many of us, most of us in this district, with sympathy. The different views existing in English society found memorable expression on two occasions in Newcastle. In the midst of the war, at a banquet in our town hall, Earl Russell gave it as his opinion that the North was fighting for empire and the South for independence. Mr. Gladstone, the year after, in the same place and on a like occasion, declared that the South had made an army, were making a navy, and would make a nation. He referred to these statements not for the purpose of reviving a long-forgotten and exhausted controversy, nor with the object of pointing out that the common people,' when great principles were at stake, were often right

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when statesmen, who took a technical view of the struggle, were in error. But he recalled the circumstances because it was but meet that the people of Tyneside, who did not share the sentiments of these two Liberal statesmen, should seize the opportunity of a visit from the great Republican commander to cull out a holiday,' to climb to walls and battlements, to towers and windows, to greet the man who fought and won the greatest fight for human freedom that this century had seen.

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Lord Russell, with characteristic courage and candor, not long after he made his speech in Newcastle, declared that he had misapprehended the objects of the American war, and acknowledged he had been wrong in the views he had entertained. Mr. Gladstone was scarcely so ready and frank with his recantation, but he also ultimately confessed that he had not understood the purposes of the Republican leaders. He trusted that General Grant's visit to this country would prevent a repetition of such misconceptions, would help to draw still closer the bonds of unity between America and England, and tend to

prevent the bellicose spirits in both nations plunging us into suffering and confusion for the gratification of unworthy and antagonistic passions. Our common interests were peace. We were streams from the same fountain-branches from the same tree. We sprang from the same race, spoke the same language, were moved by the same prejudices, animated by the same hopes; we sang the same songs, cherished the same liberal political principles, and we were imbued with the conviction that we had a common destiny to fulfill among the children of men. We were bound by the treble ties of interest, duty, and affection to live together in concord. A war between America and England would be a war of brothers. It would be a

household martyrdom only less disastrous than war between Northumberland and Middlesex. The pioneers of the Republic-the Pilgrim Fathers-were pre-eminently English. It was because they were so that they emigrated. They left us because England in that day had ceased to be England to them. They went in the assertion of the individual right of private judgment and the national right of liberty and conscience. They carved out for themselves a new home in the wilderness, into which they carried all the industrial characteristics and intellectual energies of the mother land. They did not leave us when England was in her infancy. Our national character was consolidated before they went, and Shakespeare and Milton and Bacon, and all the great men of the Elizabethan era, were not only figuratively but literally as much their countrymen as ours. They repudiated the rule of the English king, but, as they themselves declared, they never closed their partnership in the English Parnassus. They would not own the authority of our corrupt court, but they bowed before the majesty of our literary chiefs. They emigrated from Stuart tyranny, but not from the intellectual and moral glories of our philosophers and poets, any more than from the sunshine and dews of heaven. These literary ties had been extended and strengthened by years. The names of Longfellow and Lowell, Bryant and Whittier, were as much household words with us as those of Campbell and Coleridge, Byron and

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Burns, Dickens and Thackeray. Bulwer and Jerrold wrote as much for America as for England. The works of Hawthorne and Cooper, Emerson and Irving, came to us across the sea bathed in the fragrance of their boundless prairies, redolent of the freshness of their primeval pine forests, and were read and admired as warmly on the banks of the Tyne and the Thames as on the shores of the Potomac and the Mississippi. But in addition to the intellectual, there were strong material ties intertwining the two nations. When the United States ceased to

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be part of the English dominions, an increased commercial intercourse sprang up between us. Coincident with the close of the American War of Independence, the ingenuity and skill of our countrymen led to the discovery of those great mechanical inventions which produced the cotton trade. While the spindles of the Lancashire mill-owners had been weaving wealth. for themselves and power for their country, they had bound in a web of interest and good-will the American planter and merchant and the English manufacturer and workman. They trusted that when their distinguished guest returned home, he

would assure his fellow countrymen that there was, amongst men of all classes, sects, and parties in England, only one feeling toward America, and that was one of friendship-that we had only one rivalry with her, and that was to excel in the arts of peace and the works of civilization." I print this part of Mr. Cowen's speech because it gives a fair idea of the feeling of the people of Newcastle toward the United States. At the close of this reception, General Grant drove to Hesley Side, and spent the Sunday with W. H. Charlton, Esq.

There was an address by the Corporation of Gateshead, to which General Grant made a response, alluding to the depression of trade in England as affecting America and the whole of the civilized world. "But," he said, "the times will grow better, and must grow better. Whether it be that the result of over-production, or a little extravagance on the part of civilized peoples, for the time has left a surplus on hand to be consumed, we must all hope and trust that we shall soon see this depression of trade pass away."

On Monday, the 24th of September, General Grant arrived in the town of Sunderland, having accepted an invitation of the Mayor to lay the foundation stone of a new museum on the south west corner of the park. Rain had fallen, and the streets were muddy, but the houses were decorated with flags. The special engine which drew the train in which General Grant traveled had the stars and stripes flying on it with the union jack. Here, also, was a procession of workmen and benevolent societies; among them the Ancient Order of Foresters, the Odd Fellows, the Free Gardeners, the Sons of Temperance, Bricklayers, Tailors, Boat-builders, Engineers, Miners, Chainmakers, and Smiths. As the General walked up the hill to the park a salute was fired. Just then the sun came out from behind a cloud. An address was read to General Grant by the President of the Trades Council, in which, after complimenting the General, he spoke of the desire of the people for free trade and the removal of unjust tariffs, as well as the success of the principle of international arbitration. The General in response said: "I wish to return my thanks to the Trades Union and the

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