The Sun.
London, England, 1825-10-10 00:00:00

DEPARTURE OF GEN. LA FAYETTE FROM THE

UNITED STATES.

WAtsiumaTorr, gipT: 9.—On Wednesday, long before
tine bustle of military preparations was heard in our
streets, in which the stores were for the most part closed, and
ail the usual business was suspended, to enable our citizens to
join in the farewell ceremonies to General La Fayette: About
I! o'cloCk the corporations of the district repaired to the Presi-
dent's house and soon afterwards, a:6 President, attended by
the Secretaries of State, the Treasury, and Navy (the Secretary
of War being absent from the city),- the Postmaster-General,
and principal officers of the Government, accompanied General
La Fayette into the large entrance-hall, where a number of
citizens were in waiting to take leave of the venerable west of
the nation. In the midst of the circle the General took hut stand,
when the President addressed him in the following terms :---

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
TO OENEF.,AL LA FAYETTE, ON TAXING LEAVE 05'
HIM AT 1113 DEPATURE ON THE 7TH OF,SEFTEMBER.
"General La Fayette—lt has been the goodfortune of many
of my distinguished fellow-citizens, during the peurse of the year
now elapsed, upon your arrival
.at their respective places of
abode, to greet you with the welcome of the nation. The less
pleasing task now devolves upon me, of ,bidding you, in the
name of the nation, adieu. It were no longer seasonable, and
would be superfluous, to recapitulate the remarkable inci-
dents of your early life,--incidents vhich.. associated your
name, fortunes, and reputation, in imperishable connection
with the independence and history of the North American
Union. The part which you performed at that important
juncture was marked with characters so peculiar, that, real-
izirg the fairest fable' of antiquity, its paralell could scarcely
be ftiund in the authentic records of human history.—,
Yoti deliberately and perseveringly preferred toil, danger, the
endurance of every hardship, and the privation of every corn-
fort, in defence of a holy cause, to inglorious ease, and the.
allurements of rank, affluence, anti unrestrained youth, at the
most splendid and fascinating Court of Europe. That this
choice was not less wise than magnanimous, the sanction of
half- a century, and the gratulations of unnumbered voices,
all unable -to express the gratitude of the heart with which
your visit to this hemisphere has been welcomed, afford ample
deuronstration. When the contest of freedom, to which you
had repaired as a voluntary champion, had closed, by the
.complete triumph of her cause in this country 'of your adop-
tion, you returned to fulfil the duties of the philanthropist
anal patriot in the land of your nativity., There, in a con-
sistent and undeviating career of forty years, you hare main-
tired through every dieessltude of alternate success and
disappOintment, the same glorious cause, to which the first
years of your active life had been devoted—the improvement
of the moral and political condition of man. Throughout
that long succession of time, the people of the United States,
for whom, and with whom, you had fought the battles of
liberty, have been living in the full possession of its fruits ;
one of the happiest among the family of nations ; spreading
in population ; enlarging in territory ; acting and suffering
according to the condition of their nature; and laying the
- foisndations of the greatest, and we humbly hope, the most
-beneficent power that ever regulated the concerns of man upon
earth. In that -lapse of forty years, the generation Of men
with whom you co-operated hi the conflict of arms has nearly
passed away. Of the general officers of the American army
In that war, you alone survive. Of the sages who guided our
troanclls ; of the warriors who met the foe in the field or
upon the wave, with the exception of a few, to whom unusual
length of days has been allotted by Heaven, all now sleep with
their fathers. A succeeding and even a third generation have
arisen to take their places ; and their children's children,
while rising up to call them blessed, have been taught by
.as well as admonished by their own constant enjoyment
:ofireedom, to include in every benison upon their fathers, the
:name of him who came from afar, with them and in the cause
to conquer or to fall. The universal prevalence of thtiia senti-
ments was signally manifested by a resolution of Congress,
presenting the whole people, and all the States of this Union,
requesting the President of the United States to communicate
to you the assurances of grateful and-affectionate attachment of,
this Government and people, and desiring that a national ship
might be employed, at your convenience, for .your. passage to
the borders of our country. The invitation was. transmitted to
y-su by my venerable predecessor ; himself bound to you by the
strongest ties of personal friendship; himself one of those
whom the highest honours of his country had rewarded for
blood early shed in her cause, and' for a long life of devotion
to her ,welfare. By him the service of a national-,ship was
plated at your disposal. Your delicacy preferred a more pri-
vate conveyance, and a full year has elapsed sin you landed
upon our shores. It were scarcely an exaggeration to say,
draaittas been, to the people of. the Union, a year of un-
,isalrerrupted festivity and enjOyment inspired by your pre-
- aence. You have traversed the 24 atates of this great confe-
deracy—you have been received With rapture by-the survivors'
. of your earliest companions in arms—you have been hailed as