lation would tarnish) from the transcendent merit of which it is
the voluntary testimony.

May you long enjoy that liberty which is so dear to you, and to which
your name will ever be so dear. May your own virtues and a nation's
prayers obtain the happiest sunshine for the decline of your days and
the choicest of future blessings. For our country's sake, for the sake
of republican liberty, it is our earnest wish that your example may be
the guide of your successors, and thus, after being the ornament and
safeguard of the present age, become the patrimony of our descendants.

DECEMBER 15, 1796.

REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT.

GENTLEMEN: To a citizen whose views were unambitious, who preferred the
shade and tranquillity of private life to the splendor and solicitude
of elevated stations, and whom the voice of duty and his country could
alone have drawn from his chosen retreat, no reward for his public
services can be so grateful as public approbation, accompanied by a
consciousness that to render those services useful to that country has
been his single aim; and when this approbation is expressed by the
Representatives of a free and enlightened nation, the reward will admit
of no addition. Receive, gentlemen, my sincere and affectionate thanks
for this signal testimony that my services have been acceptable and
useful to my country. The strong confidence of my fellow-citizens, while
it animated all my actions, insured their zealous cooperation, which
rendered those services successful. The virtue and wisdom of my
successors, joined with the patriotism and intelligence of the citizens
who compose the other branches of Government, I firmly trust will
lead them to the adoption of measures which, by the beneficence of
Providence, will give stability to our system of government, add to its
success, and secure to ourselves and to posterity that liberty which is
to all of us so dear.

While I acknowledge with pleasure the sincere and uniform disposition
of the House of Representatives to preserve our neutral relations
inviolate, and with them deeply regret any degree of interruption of
our good understanding with the French Republic, I beg you, gentlemen,
to rest assured that my endeavors will be earnest and unceasing by all
honorable means to preserve peace and to restore that harmony and
affection which have heretofore so happily subsisted between our two
nations; and with you I cherish the pleasing hope that a mutual spirit