Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1879-05-09
Cen. Grant in CaIcu,ta.

At dinner given to General Grant at Gov
eminent House, Calcutta, on March 10, Lord
Lytton, Viceroy of India, in proposing the
toast of The President of the United States
of America" spoke as follows:
Ladies and Gentlemen-I sincerely believe
that there is no toast unconnected with our
own country and its institutions which is hon
ored with greater cordially by Englishmen
of all classes and in all parts of the world than
the toast l am now about to propose to you.
Because ladies and gentlemen, we English
cannot look and never do look upon America
as a foreign country, or upon the American
people as foreign people They are flesh of
our flesh, and bone of our bone. 1t is true,
no doubt that our fathers and their fathers
have had their family quarrels, over which
they have shaken hands-for quarrels will Oc.
casionally occur in the best regulated fami-
lies-but these are quarres which trust that
neither their children nor our children will
ever have occasion to renew for they hive
been practically settled by a separation of po-
kliticnl partnership prolific in substantial ben
efts to the best interests of mankind Mean
while, we Englishmen of the present day all
regard our American kinsfolk as, if | may say
so, the rising generation, and the most 60
ahead representatives of that good old sturdy
family stock which, whilo lovingly, loyalty,
and hope lastingly, honoring and keeping
honored its ancestral roof tree, still sends forth
from its little island home in the Northern
Seas the hardy offspring of a race that has
planted and is spreading in every quarter of
the habitable globe the language in which
Shakespeare wrote the liberty for which
Washington so nobly labored, the social prin-
ciples of the code of Blackstone, and the eth
cal principles of the creed of Christianity.
Ladies and gentlemen, the toast l am going
IN tn UOu Is hat n President
the United States of America. This is a toast
to which, | am sure, you would in any cir
cumstances respond with cordially. But
am confident that in the circumstances which
have brought us together this evening your
cordially will be quickened by the presence
of an eminent guest, who has twice filled with
renown the high Office we are about to honor
in the person of its present incumbent. That
office, ladies and gentlemen, is, l think, the
highest that can possibly be held-the high
est that ever has been filed by the citizen of
"a free country, and never has that high office
been more worthily won or more worthily
filled than by the distinguished soldier to
whose sword America is indebted for the re-
established Union, and. permanent peace, of
those great sovereign States over whose united
destines he has twice successfully presided.
1t was said by the great poet of our own COM
monwealth that peace hath her victories no
tories of peace, as well as those of war l am
persuaded that the name of General Grant
will be honorably associated by double re-
nown. Ladies and gentlemen, it is neither
customary nor proper to couple the name OF
any private individual, however eminent he
may be, with toasts proposed in honor of the
ruling power of a sovereign State. am not
going to infringe that rule, and, as regards
the rules of hospitality, think you must ali
feel that of hospitality and of sympathy the
best expression is in deed, not words. l
think, therefore, that it would be on my part
an inhospitable deed if to this toast added
any words which would possibly require from
our honored guest the conventional Formally
of reply. But, ladies and gentlemen, this
ut least let me say before sit down. Gen.
Ulysses Grant, like his classic namesake, has
seen men aud cities in almost every part OF
the world enlarging the genius of the states
man and the soldier by the experience OF the
traveller Let US hope that when he returns
TO that great empire of the West which he
has once rescued and twice ruled, he will at
least take with him kindly recollection OF
his brief sojourn in this empire of the East,
where his visit will long be remembered with
qualification by many sincere friends and
well-wshers. Ladies' and gentlemen, have
now to request that you will fill your glasses
and drink with all honor TO our last toast this
eyening-"The President of the States OF