sentiment, "Commerce and Diplomacy are the twin guardians of peace and prosperity." [Applause.] In spite of the present depression of business in Germany and the United States, there are evidences of returning confidence. The great, sturdy, vigorous German Nation and our own energetic people cannot long be held back in their career. And in this restoration of business, which is certain unless gross mismanagement occurs, I believe that these two nations, America and Germany, will become more and more friendly; more and more commerce will weave her web uniting the two countries, and more and more let us hope that diplomacy may go hand in hand with commerce in bringing in an era of peace which shall be lasting, and of prosperity which shall be substantial. [Loud applause.]

At the termination of Mr. WHITE's address, the Hon. JAMES G. BLAINE, Senator from Maine, appeared in the banquet hall. He was immediately escorted to a seat on the platform by Mr. CowDIN, Chairman of the Reception Committee, and received with three hearty cheers.

The President said they had a remarkably energetic Committee, for, having tried hard to get a member of the Senate of the United States, they had succeeded in capturing Senator BLAINE on the wing, and he would now call upon that distinguished gentleman to respond to the fifth regular toast:

"STEAM MAIL LINES-Keys with which wise Statesmen open Foreign Ports to Maritime Commerce." [Loud applause.]

Senator BLAINE deprecated being called upon in this sudden and unexpected manner, and asked, at least, for time to gain his breath.

President BABCOCK.-The Senator has exerted himself so much in getting here to-night, it is but right that he should have time to recover his lost breath. I will, meanwhile, give you the sixth regular

toast:

"THE RESTORATION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS, AND THE FUNDING OF THE GOVERNMENT DEBT-The crowning achievements of American Finance." [Applause.]

This toast will be responded to by the permanent Representative in Congress of the commercial interests of Brooklyn, Hon. S. B. CHITTENDEN. [Applause.]

ADDRESS OF HON. S. B. CHITTENDEN.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN: I have been in rough places before, but I never felt so much embarrassed as I do now. I tender you my best thanks for this kind treatment. Your cheers are, however, in strong contrast with certain lectures to which I have been listening for the last three or four days from my brethren over in

Brooklyn, who charge me with profane swearing-[laughter]-at a greenback representative, too, and a minister of the Gospel at that, from the State of Indiana. [Laughter.] There is not a word of truth in the charge; and if I had time I should like to prove it, for the comfort of Rev. Dr. STORRS' Church, and for the respectability of my numerous grandchildren. [Laughter and applause.]

But, Mr. President, it is the strangest thing in the world that a merchant, going to Congress, should be thought to be the worse for it; and yet I can find over in Brooklyn plenty of people who think I have been spoiled by going to Congress. [Applause and laughter.] I tell them that there are only three or four merchants to two hundred and forty-two lawyers and one minister in the House, and it is the most ridiculous proposition to suppose that I could be injured by such associations. [Laughter.] But so it is. And now I have to repeat that I did not swear at Mr. DE LA MATYR, of Indiana. He came to his seat in Congress, and had not warmed it. before he began to revile the "oppressors of the people," and to talk about the "money power," looking straight at me, as the representative of the New-York Chamber of Commerce, and what could I do but watch him. [Laughter.] I soon found him writing letters home, according to the Evening Post, saying that he could not be spared from Washington for any local service in Indiana, for the money power was rising, and the people would be crushed and ruined if he did not stay to look after them. Well, when he went up to the Speaker's desk, and prayed for everybody, and then went straightway back to his own desk, and consigned the half of us (the specie-paying bondholders) to h, I could not but "go after him." [Loud laughter and applause.] I meant to have it known that there were men in Congress who understood the greenback idiocy, but I did not use a profane word; I may have, all unconsciously, used a word that no gentleman should ever use, unless it is forced from him by just indignation that knows no power of resistance. [Applause.]

And now a few sober words, while the Senator from Maine is getting his wind. By your favor, Mr. President, I will move a slight amendment to the toast assigned me:

"The resumption of specie payments and the funding of the Government debt" are the "crowning" prophecy of the hidden and still unappreciated force of our national resources, rather than the achievement of statesmanship. [Applause.] It cannot be said that the Resumption Act of 1875 was a sincere measure, devised to accomplish the end its name implies. Nobody at that time pretended to see just how and when resumption could be brought about. The act referred to was a caucus measure, to put the question temporarily out of politics for the benefit of the Republican party. The 45th Congress did all it thought necessary to prevent resumption, and I question whether there were fifty members, when it adjourned last June, who believed resumption possible at the day fixed. [Applause.] It is well known by every member of this Chamber, that if there had been no 45th Congress, we should have had resumption a year or more ago. [Applause.] Resumption came, as it seems to me,

not by legislation, but in spite of legislation, by the irresistible force of laws which always defy Congress. [Applause.]

Let us not, however, be too confident. The currency is still the most important question before the country. The perfect work of resumption is not yet assured. Vigilance, courage and judicial authority are required to crown and glorify the triumph. There are now more wild currency projects in Congress than ever before, and their authors and promoters were never more active and aggressive. The bill for free silver coinage and for free certificates to circulate as money, is pressed with great confidence, but I am glad to assure you that it cannot become a law. It passed the House in November, 1877, 164 to 34, but it is doubtful now if it has a majority in the House even. It is known that the bill can

never pass the Senate. [Applause.]

It is expected now on all hands that Congress will shortly adjourn. The 7th of June will date the beginning of the end of legal tender greenbacks, and if I may indulge in a little egotism, the Supreme Court of the United States may take the legal tender paper business out of Congress next December. [Applause.]

I believe that the greenback idiocy and clipped dollar rascality are doomed by the common sense and judicial sense of an indignant people, who know how to make their power felt for the maintenance of the Constitution of the country against political dalliance, dense ignorance and wicked demagogues. [Applause.]

The set time has come, Mr. President, in my judgment, for a fresh outburst of patriotic ardor, to rescue our great and really prosperous country from the poisonous debris of the rebellion and civil war. [Applause.]

The President said, that to give Senator BLAINE a little more time to recover his breath, he would now give the seventh regular toast, to which Rev. Dr. BELLOWs would respond : "COMMERCE, THE PIONEER OF SCIENCE AND THE HANDMAID OF ART."

ADDRESS OF REV. HENRY W. BELLOWS, D. d.

GENTLEMEN : I recollect when I was a boy, a good while ago, we used to suffer from a complaint that we called chilblains. I am suffering a little from that disease just at the present moment, [laughter,] for to act as a wet blanket, to moderate the enthusiasm of this audience, in expectancy of the eloquent Senator from Maine, although very agreeable to you, as you have the expectancy, is not so stimulating to the person who has to perform that humble office. [Laughter and applause.]

Now, in regard to the motto or toast which your President has announced for me, I always suppose that, on these occasions, the toast is but a sort of lasso that the skillful gaucho of the occasion casts over the neck of his victim to drag him in, but to which he is not expected to give very much attention. I am in the habit of relying altogether upon the inspiration of the moment, and am never able to meet the opportunity like those whose deliberate and

careful preparation adds so much to what is said. I shall say, for the very few moments I stand here, just what it is given me to say, having nothing particular to do, except to keep you cool and quiet while Mr. BLAINE gets his breath. [Applause.]

On a recent occasion I had the pleasure of participating, with some six hundred citizens of New-York, in a certain remarkable gathering, to celebrate the union of the old world with the new by the Atlantic cable. It was a very memorable occasion for me; for after being a citizen of New-York for forty years, I thought I was tolerably well acquainted with those who had raised their heads above the common level; but of those six hundred persons, there were at least four hundred men that I never saw before. And yet, I never looked upon an assembly that seemed to me to represent so much energy, power and ability. [Applause.] I asked who were these men, and I found they were the great captains of industry in New-York and its neighborhood. I found they were great public contractors, engaged in large operations, men who had made their mark upon the community, every one of them. Not known in the small circle in which it is my privilege or misfortune to move, but all perfectly well known to large constituencies, who felt that they were fit representatives of the commercial and trading and industrial power of this country. [Applause.] And it is to this unknown element of power in our country, always under the stimulus of freedom and in the emulation of a true equality, that we are to look for our main strength, and which is the real anchor of our hope. [Applause.] What I observe among cultivated American citizensusually professors of colleges, representatives of learned institutes, adepts in philosophy and in ethics-is, a certain distrust of American institutions. I do not believe there is any mildew that so prostrates the trade and so enervates the political life of this country as the skepticism living in the minds of the ideal, scholastic, æsthetical members of American society in regard to the possibility of carrying out our great principles, and finding them to flower into blossoms of peace and prosperity, and not to be destined to rot into abject, miserable failure. [Applause.]

I recollect, just before the war, Lord NAPIER, in a long conversation I had with him one evening, said that he had not met what he called a first-class man in America who had any confidence in the permanence of our institutions. I said to him, "My Lord, I fear you have associated only with a sort of persons somewhat 'sicklied o'er with thought,' men who live in the crevices of the libraries, men who never feel the fresh breezes of the great, broad country blowing through their hair and penetrating their brain. [Applause.] I fear you know nothing of the best politicians in this land, who are found in the country villages. I fear you know nothing of our farmers; you know nothing of the great executive force of this country; or you would have abated your fears. [Applause.] You have confined yourself too much to the atmosphere of colleges or libraries. You have visited too much the marble steps of Fifth Avenue and Beacon-street, Boston, or some other favored portions of our country, where people, having all the advantages of special,

social, aristocratic tastes and connections, think meanly, think poorly, think miserably, falsely of the real power and spirit and life which a great Republic demonstrates in this country." [Applause.] Nothing is more interesting, nothing is more comforting than to observe that, whatever there may be that is discouraging or distasteful in the character of the popular press in this country, yet, by the currency which it gives to published debates and the thoughts of able men, and in spite of the equal publicity it furnishes of the fallacies of crude, narrow minds, it is educating by degrees the mind of the American Nation as the mind of no nation on the earth was ever educated before. [Applause.] We have only to look at the progress which has been made in the financial question, not by the influence of statesmen, but by the reported debates and discussions of our public newspapers, we have only to see the mighty and astonishing progress in correctness of thinking which has been made on that subject within the last five years in this country, to believe that no question is too deep for the common sense of the American people. [Applause.] And it will be always right. The American people is right, and will be right, because, for the first time in history, the nation has adopted into its Constitution the essential principles of Christianity. [Applause.] For the first time, faith in man as the child of GOD, faith in reason as the representative of the Divine Reason; faith, nope, charity towards all men, confidence in humanity itself, and not in its exceptional classes, has taken deep root in our institutions, and now governs and controls the mind of the nation. [Applause. I think I can see that you are sufficiently cool by this time, and that our friend Senator BLAINE's breath has come; and so I give you surcease from any further words of mine, to place no further barrier between you and the hearing of his eloquent voice. [Applause.]

The President then introduced Senator BLAINE, who was received with three cheers.

ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES G. BLAINE.

If

MR. CHAIRMAN: I rise only to get out of the way, in order that this procession may go forward. [Laughter.] I am a mere chance comer—a disturber of the programme-but I don't intend to be made the butt of either the flattery or the wit of the last speaker. [Laughter.] When, however, I come to read this toast, I really do not know exactly at what it is aimed. If it is aimed at me, it is to congratulate me on failure, and not on a success. it be a confession on the part of the Chamber of Commerce that that is their creed, then it is the beginning of the end of the victory to come; [laughter and applause ;] because, if I speak the voice of the Chamber of Commerce of New-York in that toast, I know that I speak with a voice far mightier than any that has been raised in Congress; and I have it to declare, that if it be the will of that Chamber and of the people to initiate a policy for the revival of American commerce, then it is done! [Applause.] But you will