We are honoured to-day by the presence of the Members of Her Majesty’s Government. The only return which the country can make to those men, who sacrifice their own quiet, privacy, and often health, to the arduous and anxious labours of conducting the public business, is an acknowledgment of the sincerity and disinterestedness of their motives of action. This it is which I invite you to give upon the present occasion in drinking the health of Her Majesty’s Government, and Lord John Russell, Lord President of the Council.
6.
I am very much obliged to you for the kind expressions in which you have proposed my health, and to the company for the way in which they have received it. But I have to thank you, the Elder Brethren, especially, for the mark of confidence which you have shown me in re-electing me as your Master, a confidence which I assure you that I appreciate highly, and of which I shall be anxious to prove myself at all times worthy. Although the duties of my office are hardly more than nominal, I attach the greatest value to my personal connection with your Corporation—the only public body to whom duties are intrusted so deeply affecting the interests of the commerce, the shipping, and the seamen of this country. I must also take this opportunity to congratulate you on the working of the important alterations made last year in your constitution, as they have proved a successful attempt at that difficult and nice operation, to bring the spontaneous activity of a public body into harmony with the general feelings of the country, as represented in its Government, without destroying all individual and organic life by the killing influence of an arbitrary mechanical centralization.
In proposing to you to drink to the future prosperity of the Corporation, I shall but follow your wishes in coupling the toast with the name of the Deputy Master, to whose zeal and ability so much of its present prosperity is due.
7.
I have the honour of naming to you, as the next toast, “The Honorary Brethren of the Corporation.” They are composed of men, although varying in their political opinions, yet all standing high in the estimation of their country—an esteem which they have earned by distinguished services rendered to the State, and the Corporation is justly proud of its connection with them. I would ask permission to couple the toast with the name of The Earl of Haddington.
14.
In returning the thanks of the Corporation to our distinguished guests, I beg leave to propose to you “The Health of the Lord High Chancellor of England, and the other noble and distinguished persons who have this day honoured the Corporation by their presence.”