Gentlemen:

I offer you my thanks for the polite and respectful manner in which you have conveyed to me the sense of the General Assembly.

I feel very sensibly the pleasure arising from the public approbation, but permit me to assure you, that though I highly value the esteem of all good and wise men, yet the prosperity of my Country is always the object of my most earnest wishes, and that the hope of promoting it has always been the principle that engaged me in public service.

I am happy that our fair prospects afford a period when a Citizen may retire into private life without deviating from his obligations to Society.