per the literary institution under your care, in giving you the best of its blessings in this world, as well as in the world to come. GEORGE WASHINGTON. TO THE INHABITANTS OF PROVIDENCE. GENTLEMEN, The congratulations, which you offer me on my arrival in this place, are received with no small degree of pleasure. For your attentions and endeavours to render the town agreeable to me, and for your expressions of satisfaction at my election to the Presidency of the United States, I return you my warmest thanks. My sensibility is highly excited oy your ardent declarations of attachment to my person and the constitution. As, under the smiles of Heaven, America is indebted for freedom and independence rather to the joint exertions of the citizens of the several States, in which it may be your boast to have borne no inconsiderable share, than to the conduct of the Commanderin-chief, so is she indebted for their support rather to a continuation of those exertions, than to the prudence and ability manifested in the exercise of the powers delegated to the President of the United States. Your hopes for the extension of commerce, the encouragement of agriculture and manufactures, and the establishment of public faith, as reared upon our constitution, are well founded; and it is my earnest wish, that you may extensively enjoy the benefit arising from them. I thank you, Gentlemen, for your prayer for my future welfare, and offer up my best wishes for your individual and collective happiness. GEORGE WASHINGTON. TO THE CONVENTION OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH LATELY ASSEMBLED IN PHILADELPHIA. 1790. GENTLEMEN, I thank you cordially for the congratulations, which you offer on my appointment to the office I have the honor to hold in the government of the United States. It gives me the most sensible pleasure to find, that, in our nation, however different are the sentiments of citizens on religious doctrines, they generally concur in one thing; for their political professions and practices are almost universally friendly to the order and happiness of our civil institutions. I am also happy in finding this disposition particularly evinced by your society. It is, moreover, my earnest desire, that all the members of every association or community, throughout the United States, may make such use of the auspicious years of peace, liberty, and free inquiry, with which they are now favored, as they shall hereafter find occasion to rejoice for having done. With great satisfaction I embrace this opportunity to express my acknowledgments for the interest my affectionate fellow-citizens have taken in my recovery from a late dangerous indisposition; and I assure you, Gentlemen, that, in mentioning my obligations for the effusions of your benevolent wishes in my behalf, I feel animated with new zeal, that my conduct may VOL. XII. 25 ૨ ever be worthy of your favorable opinion, as well as such as shall, in every respect, best comport with the character of an intelligent and accountable being. GEORGE WASHINGTON. TO THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND. 1790. GENTLEMEN, While I acknowledge, with grateful sincerity, my personal obligations to the legislature of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, for the very flattering manner in which they convey their congratulations on my election to the chief magistracy of our confederated republic, and for the approbation they are pleased to express of my public conduct, it affords me peculiar pleasure to observe, that the completion of our Union, by the accession of your State, gives a strong assurance of permanent political happiness to the people of America. A change in the national constitution, conformed to experience and the circumstances of our country, has been most happily effected by the influence of reason alone. In this change, the liberty of the citizen continues unimpaired, while the energy of government is so increased as to promise full protection to all the pursuits of science and industry, together with the firm establishment of public credit, and the vindication of our national character. It remains with the people themselves to preserve and promote the great advantages of their political and natural situation; nor ought a doubt to be enter tained, that men, who so well understand the value of social happiness, will ever cease to appreciate the blessings of a free, equal, and efficient government. In expressing my sensibility for the interest you take in the restoration of my health, I recall with pleasure the remembrance of those civilities, which I experienced in my late visit to your State. My best wishes are offered, Gentlemen, for the prosperity of your constituents, and for your individual happiness. GEORGE WASHINGTON. TO THE GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL OF THE STATE OF GENTLEMEN, NORTH CAROLINA. AUGUST 26TH, 1790. I entreat you to be persuaded, that nothing could have been more agreeable to me, than the proofs, contained in your affectionate address, of the friendly sentiments entertained by you for my person, as well as for the government, which I have been appointed by my countrymen to administer. And I reciprocate with heartfelt satisfaction your congratulations on the completion of the union of all the States, an event, in my judgment, pregnant with more salutary consequences than can easily be expressed or conceived. It will ever be my first wish, and most strenuous endeavour, to justify, so far as may be in my power, the confidence, which my fellow-citizens have thought proper to repose in me, by exerting every power, vested in the President of the United States by the constitution, for the happiness and prosperity of our country, and by giving efficacy to such a system, as will ensure the general welfare and conciliate the public mind. I desire, Gentlemen, to make acceptable to you my acknowledgments for the kind concern you take in the restoration of my health and preservation of my life, and in the retribution I may receive after the conclusion of this mortal existence. May you, and the State, in whose government you have the principal agency, be also the peculiar care of Divine Providence. GEORGE WASHINGTON. TO THE INTENDANT AND WARDENS, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE CITIZENS OF CHARLESTON.* GENTLEMEN, MAY 3D, 1791. The gratification you are pleased to express, at my arrival in your metropolis, is replied to with sincerity, in a grateful acknowledgment of the pleasing sensations, which your affectionate urbanity has excited. Highly sensible of your attachment and favorable opinions, I entreat you to be persuaded of the lasting gratitude which they impress, and of the cordial regard with which they are returned. It is the peculiar boast of our country, that her happiness is alone dependent on the collective wisdom. and virtue of her citizens, and rests not on the exertions of any individual. While a just sense is entertained of our natural and political advantages, we * The President was at this time in Charleston, on his tour through the southern States. |