Excerpt from An Oration Delivered Before the Municipal Authorities of the City of Boston, July 4, 1859 Honored by the request of the City Council to speak, in the name of Boston, on the Fourth of July, it seemed to me proper on that occasion to discuss some of our obliga tions, as Americans, to other nations and to ourselves. The facts then stated, which bear upon the aid given our country in its Revolutionary struggle, were verified by the examination of original documents in the archives of the State Department at Washington, of the French Minis try of Foreign Affairs at Paris, and of the Spanish govern ment at Seville and Madrid; and also of papers in the hands of the executor of Caron de Beaumarchais, the agent of the first benefactions of France. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.