In respect of his distinguished position as an Orator and a Statesman, and specially of his brilliant and successful services in the promotion of Free Trade.
"Last week one of my acquaintances asked me what was intended by the freedom of the city-whether there was anything in it that was useful or valuable, any privilege or right that a man could care for. I told him that, as I understood it, there was nothing that could be put into the scales and weighed, there was nothing that could be measured by rule, but there was something much more precious, if rightly considered, than silver or gold-there was the free offer of the approbation of the authorities and of the population of one of the most intelligent and renowned cities of the United Kingdom. And to me, who have been for the last twenty-five years labouring assiduously in what I believed to be the public service - I assured him, as I assure you, that, after the priceless value of the approbation of my own conscience, there can be nothing that I value so much as the approbation of the intelligent and thoughtful among my own countrymen."