September 1 1824

Richmond, Va., Aug. 20

La Fayette has at length arrived among us to receive a nation’s benedictions. What a proud refutation of the monarchical maxim that Republics are ungrateful! What a majestic spectacle to all the nations of the earth! Never has the sun shone upon so rich a scene! Never did so great and happy a Republic take to her arms with such éclat, such overpowering manifestations of feeling, one of the first founders of her liberty – in the person too of a foreigner.

The whole nation will rise, as it were with one accord, to receive her benefactor. There is no division – no party upon this occasion – every man thinks and feels alike. All parts of the nation are anxious to have him among them. Whereever he appears, it is to witness the rapture-kindling enthusiasm of a free people. It is a spectacle which will “twice bless him that gives and him takes.” The contagion will be catching and ennobling. It will revive in our bosoms the scenes of “76”, and the glorious spirit which attended them.

Virginia will receive the hero with open arms. He will here tread again some of the proudest fields of his military glory.

No sooner was the intelligence of his arrival known in this city on Wednesday evening than the artillery company fired a salute. Yesterday all the volunteer companies turned out and fired feux de joie.

George Washington La Fayette, who has arrived with his father, is the same who, in 1795, escaped from France and arrived at Boston, where he was supported by Gen. Washington, then President, out of his private purse, and was for some time a member of Cambridge College. He afterwards returned to France and distinguished himself as an officer in Bonaparte’s army. - Trenton Emporum