The United States had grown prodigiously in the interval between this visit and his last. Instead of thirteen separate colonies there were now twenty-four united States. The population had increased from three to twelve millions. What had been wilderness was now ripe farmland; backwoods settlements had grown into flourishing towns built around the church and the schoolhouse. Agriculture and commerce were thriving everywhere, and everywhere Lafayette saw signs of the wisdom, honesty, and self-control which had established a government under which men could live in freedom and happiness.
His visit carried him far and wide through the United States. From New York he went by way of New Haven and Providence to Boston, from there to Portsmouth by the old colonial road through Salem, Ipswich, and Newburyport. From there he returned to New York by Lexington, Worcester, Hartford, and the Connecticut River. The steamer _James Kent_ took him to the old familiar scenes on the banks of the Hudson, reminding him of the day when he and Washington had ridden to the house of Benedict Arnold.
Starting again from New York he traveled through New Jersey to Philadelphia, the scene of the stirring events of his first visit, and thence to Baltimore and Washington. He went to Mount Vernon, Yorktown, Norfolk, Monticello, Raleigh, Charleston, and Savannah. In the spring of 1825 he was at New Orleans, and from there he ascended the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, sailed up Lake Erie, saw the Falls of Niagara, went through Albany and as far north as Portland, Maine. Returning by Lake Champlain he reached New York in time for the great celebration of the Fourth of July in 1825. He had made a very comprehensive tour of the United States.
The whole of this long journey was one triumphal progress. He constantly drove through arches bearing the words “Welcome, Lafayette!” Every house where he stopped became a Mecca for admiring crowds. The country had never welcomed any man as it did the gallant Frenchman. Balls, receptions, dinners, speeches, gifts of every kind were thrust upon him; and the leading men of the republic were constantly by his side.
He was present at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument and heard the great oration of Daniel Webster. “Fortunate, fortunate man!” exclaimed the orator turning toward Lafayette. “With what measure of devotion will you not thank God for the circumstances of your extraordinary life! You are connected with both hemispheres and with two generations. Heaven saw fit to ordain that the electric spark of liberty should be conducted, through you, from the New World to the Old; and we, who are now here to perform this duty of patriotism, have all of us long ago received it from our fathers to cherish your name and your virtues. You now behold the field, the renown of which reached you in the heart of France and caused a thrill in your ardent bosom. You see the lines of the little redoubt, thrown up by the incredible diligence of Prescott, defended to the last extremity by his lion-hearted valor, and within which the corner-stone of our monument has now taken its position. You see where Warren fell, and where Parker, Gardner, M’Cleary, Moore, and other early patriots fell with him. Those who survived that day, and whose lives have been prolonged to the present hour, are now around you. Some of them you have known in the trying scenes of the war. Behold, they now stretch forth their feeble arms to embrace you! Behold, they raise their trembling voices to invoke the blessing of God on you and yours forever!”