4. Washington's original draught of an Address, sent by him to Hamilton, on the 15th May, 1796, for the purposes described in Washington's letter of that date. I give this title to a paper left by Washington at his death, and which subsequently was in Mr. Sparks's possession, for the purposes of his edition of Washington's Writings. Mr. Sparks has supplied a copy of the beginning and conclusion of this paper to Mr. Hamilton, the author of Hamilton's life, by whose permission I use them. The two middle parts are printed in Mr. Sparks's Appendix. One of them is Madison's draught; the other is the paper entitled "Hints or Heads "of Topics." Together they constitute the entire draught, as it appears in the Appendix to this Inquiry. The lines which Washington altered, by drawing a line through them, though perfectly legible in the paper, are not material, and are supplied by asterisks. The words he interlined, to connect what is disjoined by the erasure, are printed in italics on the body of the page in the Appendix.

5. Hamilton's "Abstract of points to form an Address;" printed in Hamilton's Works, vol. vii, p. 570.

6. Hamilton's original draught of the Farewell Address; printed in the same volume, page 575.

7. Mr. Jay's letter to Judge Peters, dated 29th March, 1811; in the second volume of the Life of John Jay, by his son William Jay, at page 336.

8. The Farewell Address to the People of the United States, by Washington, dated 17th September, 1796; in the twelfth volume of Washington's Writings, edited by Jared Sparks, at page 214.

9. The reprint of the autograph copy of Washington's Farewell Address, with certain clauses and words which had

been cancelled in the autograph copy, now restored and printed at the foot of the respective pages.

These are all the authorities which are necessary to determine the respective contributions of Washington and Hamilton to the Farewell Address; and they are all accessible, in original or copy, in their original completeness. And it is remarkable that they are not only all that is necessary to this end, but that some of them supply irresistible negative proof, that nothing occurred personally, or face to face, between Washington and Hamilton, to affect the inferences which the written or printed documents justify; for, except a single personal interview between them, before the corre spondence began, which interview, the correspondence shows, had no influence whatever on the subsequent work of either of the parties, there was not a single instance of personal intercourse, direct or indirect, from the beginning to the end of the whole work on both sides. The whole matter was conducted in writing, and without the intervention of any common friend, instructed upon the subject, and passing between the parties.

Washington himself prepared a draught of a valedictory address, and showed it to Hamilton in Philadelphia, before the 10th of May, 1796. On that day Hamilton wrote to Washington from New York, in regard to this paper, and Washington sent it to him, with a letter dated the 15th May.

A draught of such an Address, in Washington's handwriting, either the same which he sent to Hamilton, or another, was found among Washington's papers, after his death. The paper that was so found, and which I shall

hereafter refer to as the preserved paper, is described by Mr. Sparks, in the Appendix to the twelfth volume of Washington's Writings, at page 391, as follows: "It is certain, "however, that it was Washington's original idea to embody "in the Address the substance and the form of Mr. Madi"son's draught, and to make such additions as events and the change of circumstances seemed to require. A paper of "this description has been preserved, in which is first in"serted Mr. Madison's draught, and then a series of memoran"da or loose hints, evidently designed to be wrought into the "Address. These are here printed as transcribed from the

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original manuscript:" and then follows a succession of paragraphs, with the heading HINTS OR HEADS OF TOPICS, filling about two pages and a half of the Appendix.

Mr. Sparks's imperfect knowledge of some of the papers I have referred to, which were not published until after the completion of his edition of Washington's Writings, and perhaps something in the very considerable dissimilitude, at least in form, between the preserved paper and the published Farewell Address, induced him, probably, to regard it as uncertain whether this paper was the same which Washington showed, and afterwards sent, to Hamilton, as his draught of the Address. In this state of doubt or disbelief, he omitted to print the entire paper in extenso. Some remarks in the initial part of it, introductory of Madison's draught, might have given some pain to the surviving family of Mr. Madison; and if the paper was in reality, what Mr. Sparks seems to have thought it was, a speculative paper, or a paper containing mere memoranda or hints of topics for an address, and not a definite presentment of Washington's thoughts and language, it may seem to have come

within the discretion of an editor, either to select it or not, for publication. But the publication of several papers on the subject of the Address, since that edition of Washington's Writings, particularly Hamilton's original draught, and Washington's letters to Hamilton, having made it not probable merely, but morally certain, that this preserved paper is the very draught which was sent by Washington to Hamilton, by.a letter of the 15th May, 1796, Mr. Sparks, upon request, immediately supplied to Mr. John C. Hamilton copies of the beginning and conclusion of the paper, and has always, I learn, been ready so to communicate copies of such of these papers as were in his possession, on this subject; and by means of them the whole draught has been completed, and appears in the Appendix to this Inquiry. There can be no reasonable doubt that the preserved paper at large, is the original draught of Washington, which his letter to Hamilton refers to. It was also, in some degree, a completed paper, as far as Washington personally meant to go. It begins with a formal address to the people, by the description of "Friends and Fellow-Citizens ;" and it concludes with Washington's signature in the usual form, but without date. Its identity is specially established by an alteration on the first page of it, which is noticed in Washington's letter to Hamilton, and is made by a line drawn through certain expressions, and through a name at the foot of the first page. As the whole matter is now, at least, historical, there can be no propriety in leaving any part of a writing incomplete, which is so manifestly a principal hinge of the main question. The alteration in the paper has become, also, a matter of complete insignificancy, in the personal relation, to Mr. Madison or to any one else, even if,

under any circumstances, the contrary aspect of it can be thought to justify a departure from the right line of history, in regard to the acts of great public men, who have left the records of them for inspection.

There are one or two particulars in which Mr. Sparks, by his omission to print the concluding paper, and by remarks upon a part of it which he does print, has unintentionally done some injustice to Washington. Nothing could have been further from his intention.

From the concluding part of the preserved paper, Hamilton has taken some rather touching thoughts of Washington, in regard to his long life of service, and to the affection which he bore to the land that had been his birthplace, and the birthplace of his ancestors for four generations. He also has taken from it his reference to the Proclamation of Neutrality, and other matters. A considerable portion of the conclusion, Hamilton, with Washington's approbation, has omitted; because, as a public paper, looking to distant posterity, as well as to the time present, it was thought best to turn away from the temporary causes of irritation, which Washington, with some animation, had referred to as a party injustice to him. One ought not to question what two such judgments as Washington's and Hamilton's finally approved. But the concluding part of Washington's draught appears to be of the greatest importance to his personal biography. It will enable the public to know him, even better than he is generally known, and neither to love nor to honor him less. It may show us, that like Achilles, he was vulnerable in one part, not, however, in a lower part of his nature, but in the sensitive tegument of the higher; and that the arrows of party had just so far raised the skin, that his arm was up,