“The joint testimonies of affection and esteem, with which I am honoured by the respectable pastors of the several denominations in the city and environs of Philadelphia, at the same time that they fill my heart with sentiments of high gratification and profound gratitude, afford an additional proof of the holy fraternity which, in this happy land, unite together the ministers of a gospel of liberty and equality.
“How can republican principles be better supported than by pastors, who, to their own eminent virtues, join the inappreciable advantage of being the free elective choice of their respective congregations.
“I beg you, reverend gentlemen, to accept my respectful and affectionate thanks for your kind address, the more gratifying to me, as it is delivered by a respectable old friend, the friend of Washington, whose patriotic prayers and blessings have in this Congress Hall been associated with the most important events of the revolution.”
The discourse of bishop White, and the answer of Lafayette awakened in me, I confess many new ideas; I began to comprehend that under a good government, religion and liberty, far from being incompatible, mutually support each other, and to procure this happy alliance, unknown in Europe, nothing is wanting but that government, renouncing the absurd and monstrous system of wishing to make tool of religion, should leave the citizens to choose and pay those to whom they entrust their consciences.
I have said that the French residents of Philadelphia, expressed to General Lafayette their sentiments of personal attachment, and the pleasure they experienced in seeing one of their compatriots in the enjoyment of so glorious a triumph. They were led by Mr. Duponceau, their orator, who acquitted himself with that ardent eloquence which has its source in loyalty and love of liberty.
Mr. Duponceau, whom we already had the pleasure of hearing address General Lafayette, at the head of the Philosophical Society, of which he is a member, and of the Philadelphia Bar, of which he is one of the principal ornaments, has resided in the United States since the war of Independence, through which he served with distinction under the command of Baron Steuben, whose aid-de-camp he was. As a lawyer and learned man, Mr. Duponceau has acquired in his adopted country a brilliant reputation, which is enhanced by the practice of every virtue. During our stay in Philadelphia, we counted among our happy moments, those which were passed in his always amiable and instructive conversation.
We found also in Philadelphia another of our compatriots, whom we were very happy to embrace; this was General Bernard, a man not less modest than learned, whose talents and disinterested patriotism were not appreciated by the French government of 1815. General Bernard, who as is known passed with distinction through the imperial court of Napoleon, without losing any thing of his republicanism, which may be considered as a phenomenon, has here found just estimators of his merits. Charged by the American government to secure the defence of the Union by a complete system of fortification, and the prosperity of its commerce by the construction of canals and roads of immense extent, he gives us the satisfaction of seeing a French name nobly connected with all the sublime enterprises of a great nation. No one can know General Bernard without feeling for him sincere sentiments of esteem, admiration and friendship.
All the time that General Lafayette could withhold from the kindness of his numerous friends and the people of Philadelphia, was spent in visiting the humane and public institutions, which are exceedingly multiplied in this vast city; but before designating or describing them, I will give a rapid glance at the settlement and history of Pennsylvania.
In 1627, a company of Swedes and Finlanders landed on the banks of the Delaware, and laid the first foundations of that colony, which was afterwards so rapidly developed under the mild and humane institutions of William Penn. The wisdom and moderation of the Swedes and their excellent administration, should have secured them the peaceful possession of a soil which they had acquired by the free grant of the natural proprietors, the Indians, but scarcely thirty years elapsed before they were deprived of their possessions by the Hollanders, who themselves were soon dispossessed by the English, not less rapacious, and more cunning.
In 1681, Charles II. king of England willing to reward the services Admiral Penn had rendered to the crown, granted to his son William Penn 20,000 acres of land upon the banks of the Delaware; this grant was secured by a charter which contained the following clause.