By a providential coincidence, surgical skill, at this juncture,
essentially improved his physical condition; but it became
indispensable, at the same time, that he should exchange our rigorous
clime for one more congenial; and he sailed five years ago for Italy,
taking up his residence in Piedmont, where dwell so many of the eminent
adherents of the cause he loved, and where the institutions, polity,
and social life include so many elements of progress and of faith. It
was now that those who knew him best, including some of the leading
citizens of his adopted city, applied to the Executive for his
appointment as United States Consul at Genoa. There was a singular
propriety in the request. Having passed and honored the ordeal of
American citizenship, and being then a popular resident of the city
which gave birth to the discoverer of this continent,--familiar with
our institutions, and endeared to so many of the wise and brave in
America and Italy,--illustrious through suffering, a veteran disciple
and martyr of freedom,--he was eminently a representative man, whom
freemen should delight to honor; and while it then gratified our sense
of the appropriate that this distinction and resource should cheer his
declining years, we are impelled, now that death has canonized
misfortune and integrity, to avail ourselves of the occasion to
rehearse the incidents and revive the lessons of his life.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25