ing that these grateful emotions have brought up with them a somewhat painful apprehension that those who have bestowed this generous welcome upon me, may, to patriots of a less confiding disposition, seem to have incurred the fault of forgetting the interests of their own country, in extending their hospitality to a stranger. I have been accustomed to study and contemplate the commerce of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, the teeming wealth of the Mississippi Valley and the golden treasures of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, and, I believe, without having awakened a suspicion of personal cupidity. I do not think it necessary, therefore, to disclaim that unworthy motive for my visit here, when, for the first time, standing among the mines of Guanajuato, Potosi, and Real del Monte, and contemplating with wonder and admiration the grains, and fruits, and flowers of temperate though tropical Mexico. As little, perhaps, need I disclaim common individual ambition as a motive of my visit to Mexico. Certainly, I ought to know now, if I have never known before, that the people of Mexico wisely reserve political places and honors not for foreign adventurers, but for their own loyal and patriotic citizens.
But what shall be said of the ambition of the United States, and of my supposed share in that ambition? Certainly, only this need be said, that while that ambition is always less than I would inspire my Government with, I am neither its agent nor in any sense its representative. But what shall be said of the ambition of the United States as a nation, and of my own complicity therewith? On this point I answer with a full and frank confession. The people of the United States, by an instinct which is a peculiar gift of Providence to nations, have comprehended better than even their government has ever yet done, the benignant destinies of the American Continent and their own responsibility in that important matter. They know and see clearly, that although the colonization, and initiation of civilization in all parts of this continent was assigned to European monarchical States, yet that in perfecting society and civilization here, every part of the continent must sooner or later
