But let us return from this digression to the last expedition. On the 17th of July the squadron departed from Queenstown for the third time. As they passed Cape Clear, into the Western Ocean, they parted company; but such is the accuracy of modern navigation, that, though there was no earthly map or mark to guide them, yet steering by the compass and the celestial signals, one after the other all arrived at the appointed rendezvous in mid-ocean.

On the 29th of July the two great ships took their places a short distance from each other. A strong hawser fastened them together. The end of the cable which the Niagara bore was carried to the Agamemnon and there spliced to the end of hers; it was then lowered into the sea, and the ships moved, each toward its own country, at first creeping slowly till the cable had sunk far down, and then faster, to a speed of five or six miles an hour.

Let us glance for a moment at the Agamemnon on her homeward track. She suffered severe weather, and more than once the cable was in extreme peril. Once, in order to remove a defect in the coil, it was necessary to stop the ship-an operation the most dangerous, for the experience of the two former trials had shown that the insatiable sea will neither give back what it has received nor allow the supply to cease. But a good Providence watched over the ship, and on the 5th of August she came safely to land.

Let us now return to our own Niagara and her faithful attendant. The Gorgon, herself a ship of eleven hundred tons, though but a boat by the side of the Niagara, led the way, because the compasses of the latter were affected by the cable, and the great ship followed close behind. Never was navigator more vigilant and more successful than Captain Dayman. His observations went on by day and by night; as one heavenly body went down and another arose, his instruments were turned to the rising luminary, and he never swerved from the shortest line along the great arc of the circle to the head of Trinity Bay. The Niagara steered by the Gorgon. Her machinery worked with the utmost regularity, never stopping for an instant, and her officers and men were as exact as her machinery. Silence, as far as possible, was enforced, and such light was kept that at

night she appeared to the Gorgon to be illuminated. Who can tell what anxious suspense there was in that ship as each hour, each day, passed on, increasing the chances of success, strengthening the hopeful, restoring the despondent-what sleepless eyes, what beating hearts were there! As the great ships went forward, from the moment when they disappeared from each other below the horizon, messages were constantly interchanged -ship answered to ship as the hours bore them farther apart and nearer their destination. I scarcely know a dialogue more affecting than that which was held between the Niagara and Agamemnon on this last voyage. At length, on the morning of the 4th of August, under as bright a sky as ever smiled on a great achievement, the headlands of Trinity Bay rose above the sea directly before them.

Then there came out to meet them, and be their pilot into their desired haven, another English ship-the Porcupinewhose captain, Otter, had so carefully surveyed and so closely watched, that he had not only found all the channels, but had stationed boats to mark the narrowest, and that the ships might be seen far off, had sent sailors into an island of the bay on which was a high and wooded hill, ordering them to watch day and night, and as soon as the fleet hove in sight to set the wood on fire. The fire was kindled, and the burning hill was at once bonfire and signal for the victorious ships. The bay was so deep that the head of it was not reached till after midnight. There, at five o'clock of the morning of the 5th of August, the end of that mysterious wire was taken ashore; and as soon as it was secured in its appointed station, the brave sailor and humble Christian who commanded the Niagara, in the open air, in the early daylight, while all the gentlemen and seamen bowed their heads reverently, gave thanks to the Almighty for the good voyage ended. And thus was the Atlantic cable laid.

THE ROMERO BANQUET.

Speech at the banquet given to Mr. Romero, Minister from Mexico, on the evening of the 29th of March, 1864, by citizens of New York, with the view of manifesting their sympathy for that republic in her struggle against French invaders.

At nine o'clock the chairman, Mr. Beekman, called the company to order and

said:

"GENTLEMEN: We are met to do honor to the great cause of religious and political freedom, now contended for against fearful odds by our neighbor, the Republic of Mexico. In welcoming her minister and representative, we mean to show our good-will toward his country. Our hearts are so full, we have so much to say, that I venture upon a Mexican pronunciamiento, and interrupt your feast midway by a revolutionary innovation, while I give as the first regular toast 'The President of the United States' [enthusiastic cheers-the company rising]. I call on Mr. David Dudley Field to reply."

MR. FIELD replied:

MR. CHAIRMAN: Why I should be called upon to answer this toast, I do not precisely know. I hold, as you, sir, are aware, no official position, and am in no manner entitled to speak, except as any citizen may, for the President or any member of his cabinet. So far as the toast is a compliment or salutation for the country of which he is the first magistrate, we who are Americans all share, both in giving and receiving it. So far as it calls for the expression of any opinion or intention on the part of the Executive, I, of course, can say nothing.

There is one respect, however, in which all of us-private citizens may venture to speak for the chief magistrate, and that is when we interpret or express the judgment of the American people. Here, more than anywhere else, the executive department of the government is the agent and exponent of the popular will. The President may, it is true, have information not immediately accessible to the public, and, acting upon it, may decide in a manner of which the public does not at first approve; but, in the end, when the information becomes general, the conclusions at which the nation arrives give law to cabinets and presidents.

When, therefore, we utter the opinion of the American people, we answer, in a great measure, for the President; and in this manner any private citizen, like myself, may venture to speak. So doing, I assert, without hesitation, that, with unexampled unanimity, Americans feel a profound sympathy for the Mexican people in this day of their trial. The sentiment of our country is all but one on this subject. We do not stop to inquire whether Mexicans have not made mistakes in the management of their affairs. That is possible; all nations have done as much. We have done so in the management of our own affairs, of which we are now reaping the bitter fruits. But, whatever may have been the mistakes of the Mexicans, they give no sort of excuse for the invasion of the French, or the attempt of foreigners to impose a yoke upon their country.

This invasion we regard as one of the greatest crimes of our age. To war with a neighboring nation, whose proximity naturally gives rise to irritating questions, is a great evil; but to carry fire and sword among a distant and unoffending people, is a barbarous and cruel wrong which shocks the conscience of the world, and which history will execrate as it execrates the partition of Poland.

Though the minds and hearts of the American people are chiefly occupied with their own long and bloody struggle against an unnatural rebellion, they nevertheless feel deeply the wrongs of Mexico, and they will express this feeling on every proper occasion. We express it here at this festive gathering; they will express it at public meetings, in State legislatures, and in Congress; and they expect the Executive, the organ of the nation, in its intercourse with other nations, to express it also to the fullest extent within the limits of international obligations.

Not only do we give the Mexican people our sincerest sympathy, but we offer them all the encouragement which a neutral nation can offer. We bid them to be of good cheer; to hold fast by their integrity; to stand firm through all vicissitudes, believing in the strength of nationality, in the vitality of freedom, and in that overruling and all-wise Providence which, sooner or later, chastises wrong and casts down the oppressor.

This is not the place to enter upon a discussion of the motives which prompted this French invasion, nor to trace the history of the parties which have divided Mexico, and been made the pretext for the intrusion of foreigners into her domestic affairs. Thus much, however, may be said, that whatever may be the incidental questions that have arisen, there is one great and controlling feature in the controversy: and that is the claim, on the one hand, of the Church to interfere in the affairs of the State, and the claim of the State, on the other hand, to be freed from the interference of the Church. We hear constantly of the Church party in Mexico. Why should there be a Church party? What can it have legitimately to do with secular affairs? With us it has been a fundamental maxim, from the formation of our government, imbedded in the organic law, that there must be forever a total separation of Church and State. The Mexican people— that is to say, the true and loyal portion of them—are struggling for the same end; and in this we Americans, of all creeds and all parties, bid them God-speed. Yes, all of us, excepting only the rebel who raises his arms against his country, and the deceitful renegade who, not daring to raise an arm against it, seeks yet to betray it; all of us, I say, with these exceptions, pray for and believe in the deliverance of Mexico. It may be sooner or later; it may come through greater misfortunes than any which she has yet suffered, but come it will. The spirit of freedom is stronger than the lances of France.

Maximilian may come with the Austrian eagle and the French tricolor; he may come with a hundred ships; he may march on the high road from Vera Cruz to the capital, under the escort of French squadrons; he may be proclaimed by French trumpets in all the squares of the chief cities; but he will return, at some earlier or later day, a fugitive from the New World back to the Old, from which he came; his followers will be scattered and chased from the land; the titles and dignities which he is about to lavish on parasites and apostates will be marks of derision; the flag of the republic will wave from all the peaks of the Cordilleras, and be answered from every mountain-top, east and west, to either ocean; and the