Washington Thanks

DECEMBER 12, 1796.

GENTLEMEN: It affords me great satisfaction to find in your address a concurrence in sentiment with me on the various topics which I presented for your information and deliberation, and that the latter will receive from you an attention proportioned to their respective importance.

I For the notice you take of my public services, civil and military, and your kind wishes for my personal happiness, I beg you to accept my cordial thanks. Those services, and greater had I possessed ability to render them, were due to the unanimous calls of my country, and its approbation is my abundant reward.

When contemplating the period of my retirement, I saw virtuous and enlightened men among whom I relied on the discernment and patriotism of my fellowcitizens to make the proper choice of a successor—men who would require no influential example to insure to the United States "an able, upright, and energetic administration.'' To such men I shall cheerfully yield the palm of genius and talents to serve our common country; but at the same time I hope I may be indulged in expressing the consoling reflection (which consciousness suggests), and to bear it with me to my grave, that none can serve it with purer intentions than I have done or with a more disinterested zeal.

G°. WASHINGTON.