s bad and uncandid."

"I would fain carry my request to you further," adds he. "As the
recess [of Congress] may afford you leisure, and, I flatter myself,
you have dispositions to oblige me, I will, without apology, desire,
if the measure in itself should strike you as proper, or likely to
produce public good, or private honor, that you would turn your
thoughts to a valedictory address from me to the public." He then went
on to suggest a number of the topics and ideas which the address was
to contain; all to be expressed in "plain and modest terms." But, in
the main, he left it to Mr. Madison to determine whether, in the first
place, such an address would be proper; if so, what matters it ought
to contain and when it ought to appear; whether at the same time with
his [Washington's] declaration of his intention to retire, or at the
close of his career.

Madison, in reply, approved of the measure, and advised that the
notification and address should appear together, and be promulgated
through the press in time to pervade every part of the Union by the
beginning of November. With the letter he sent a draft of the address.
"You will readily observe," writes he, "that in executing it I have
aimed at that plainness and modesty of language, which you had in
view, and which, indeed, are so peculiarly becoming the character and
the occasion; and that I had little more to do as to the matter than
to follow the just and comprehensive outline which you had sketched. I
flatter myself, however, that in everything which has depended on me,
much improvement will be made, before so interesting a paper shall
have taken its last form." Before concluding his letter, Madison
expressed a hope that Washington would reconsider his idea of retiring
from office, and that the country might not, at so important a
conjuncture, be deprived of the inestimable advantage of having him at
the head of its councils.

On the 23d of May, Jefferson also addressed a long letter to
Washington on the same subject, [stating that, when Washington first
mentioned to him his purpose of retiring, he was silent, although he
felt all the magnitude of the event; because he reflected that, as the
nation would some day have to walk alone, if the essay should be made
while he were alive and looking on, they would derive confidence from
that circumstance, and resource if it failed. The public mind,
moreover, was then calm and confident, and in a favorable state for
mak