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TO THE REPUBLICANS OF GEORGETOWN.

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March 8, 1809.

The affectionate address of the republicans of Georgetown on my retirement from public duty, is received with sincere pleasIn the review of my political life, which they so indulgently take, if it be found that I have done my duty as other faithful citizens have done, it is all the merit I claim. Our lot has been cast on an awful period of human history. The contest which began with us, which ushered in the dawn of our national existence and led us through various and trying scenes, was for everything dear to free-born man. The principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for. It issued finally in that inestimable state of freedom which alone can ensure to man the enjoyment of his equal rights. From the moment which sealed our peace and independence, our nation has wisely pursued the paths of peace and justice. During the period in which I have been charged with its concerns, no effort has been spared to exempt us from the wrongs and the rapacity of foreign nations, and with you I feel assured that no American will hesitate to rally round the standard of his insulted country, in defence of that freedom and independence achieved by the wisdom of sages, and consecrated by the blood of heroes.

The favorable testimony of those among whom I have lived, and lived happily as a fellow citizen, as a neighbor, and in the various relations of social life, will enliven the days of my retirement, and be felt and cherished with affection and gratitude.

I thank you, fellow citizens, for your kind prayers for my future happiness. I shall ever retain a lively sense of your friendly attentions, and continue to pray for your prosperity and well being.

TO STEPHEN CROSS, ESQ., TOPSHAM.

MONTICELLO, March 28, 1809.

To the delegates from the various towns in the county of Essex and commonwealth of Massachusetts, assembled on the 20th of February, at Topsham.

The receipt of your kind address in the last moments of the session of Congress, will, I trust, offer a just apology for this late acknowledgment of it. I am very sensible of the indulgence with which you are so good as to review the measures of my late administration, and I feel for that indulgence the sentiments of gratitude it so justly calls for. The stand which has been made on behalf of our seamen enslaved and incarcerated in foreign ships, and against the prostration of our rights on the ocean under laws of nature acknowledged by all civilized nations, was an effort due to the protection of our commerce, and to that portion of our fellow citizens engaged in the pursuits of navigation. The opposition of the same portion, to the vindication of their peculiar rights, has been as wonderful as the loyalty of their agricultural brethren in the assertion of them has been disinterested and meritorious. If the honor of the nation can be forgotten, whether the abandonment of the right of navigating the ocean may not be compensated by exemption from the wars it would produce, may be a question for our future councils, which the disclaimer of our navigating citizens may, if continued, relieve from the embarrasment of their rights.

Sincerely and affectionately attached to our national constitution, as the ark of our safety, and grand palladium of our peace and happiness, I learn with pleasure that the number of those in the county of Essex, who read and think for themselves, is great, and constituted of men who will never surrender but with their lives, the invaluable liberties achieved by their fathers. Their elevated minds put all to the hazard for a three penny duty on tea, by the same nation which now exacts a tribute equal to the value of half our exported produce.

I thank you, fellow citizens, for the kind interest you take in my future happiness, and I sincerely supplicate that overruling

providence which governs the destinies of men and nations, to dispense his choicest blessings on yourselves and our beloved country.

TO THE REPUBLICAN MECHANICS OF THE TOWN OF LEESBURG AND

ITS VICINITY, ASSEMBLED ON THE 27TH OF FEBRUARY LAST.

MONTICELLO, March 29, 1809.

The receipt of your kind address in the last moments of the session of Congress, will, I trust, offer a just apology for its late acknowledgment.

Your friendly salutations on the close of my public life, and approbation of the motives which dictated my retirement, are received with great satisfaction.

That there should be a contrariety of opinions respecting the public agents and their measures, and more especially respecting that which recently suspended our commere and produced temporary privations, is ever to be expected among free men; and I am happy to find you are in the number of those who are satisfied that the course pursued was marked out by our country's interest, and called for by her dearest rights. While the principles of our constitution give just latitude to inquiry, every citizen faithful to it will, with you, deem embodied expressions of discontent, and open outrages of law and patriotism, as dishonorable as they are injurious; and there is reason to believe that had the efforts of the government against the innovations and tyranny of the belligerent powers been unopposed among ourselves, they would have been more effectual towards the establishment of our rights.

Unconscious of partiality between the different callings of my fellow citizens, I trust that a fair review of my attention to the interests of commerce in particular, in every station of my political life, will afford sufficient proofs of my just estimation of its importance in the social system. What has produced our present difficulties, and what will have produced the impending war, if that is to be our lot? Our efforts to save the rights of

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commerce and navigation. From these, solely and exclusively, the whole of our present dangers flow.

With just reprobations of the resistance made or menaced against the laws of our country, I applaud your patriotic resolution to meet hostility to them with the energy and dignity of freemen; and thankful for your solicitude for my health and happiness, I salute you with affectionate sentiments of respect.

TO THE FRIENDS OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE UNITED STATES IN BRISTOL COUNTY, RHODE ISLAND.

MONTICELLO, March 29, 1809.

The receipt of your friendly address in the last moments of the session of Congress, will, I trust, offer a just apology for its late acknowledgment.

We have certainly cause to rejoice that since the waves of affliction and peril, raised from the storm of war by the rival belligerents of Europe, have undulated on our shores, the councils of the nation have been able to preserve it from the numerous evils which have awfully menaced, and otherwise might have fallen upon us. How long we may yet retain this desirable position is difficult to be foreseen. But confident I am that as long as it can be done consistently with the honor and interest of our country, it will be maintained by those to whom you have confided the helm of government. A surer pledge for this cannot be found than in the public and private virtues of the successor to the chair of government, which you so justly recognize. Your reflections are certainly correct on the importance of a good administration in a republican government, towards securing to us our dearest rights, and the practical enjoinment of all our liberties; and such an one can never fail to give consolation to the friends of free government, and mortification to its enemies. In retiring from the duties of my late station, I have the consolation. of knowing that such is the character of those into whose hands they are transferred, and of a conviction that all will be done for us which wisdom and virtue can do.

I thank you, fellow citizens, for the kind sentiments of your address, and am particularly gratified by your approbation of the course I have pursued ; and I pray heaven to keep you under its holy favor.

TO THE

DEMOCRATIC

REPUBLICAN DELEGATES FROM THE TOWNSHIPS OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, IN PENNSYLVANIA, CONVENED ON THE 21ST OF FEBRUARY, 1809.

MONTICELLO, March 31, 1809.

The satisfaction you express, fellow citizens, that my endeavors have been unremitting to preserve the peace and independence of our country, and that a faithful neutrality has been observed towards all the contending powers, is highly grateful to me; and there can be no doubt that in any common times they would have saved us from the present embarrassments, thrown in the way of our national prosperity by the rival powers.

It is true that the embargo laws have not had all the effect in bringing the powers of Europe to a sense of justice, which a more faithful observance of them might have produced. Yet they have had the important effects of saving our seamen and property, of giving time to prepare for defence; and they will produce the further inestimable advantage of turning the attention and enterprise of our fellow citizens, and the patronage of our State legislatures, to the establishment of useful manufactures in our country. They will have hastened the day when an equilibrium between the occupations of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, shall simplify our foreign concerns to the exchange only of that surplus which we cannot consume for those articles of reasonable comfort or convenience which we cannot produce.

Our lot has been cast, by the favor of heaven, in a country and under circumstances, highly auspicious to our peace and prosperity, and where no pretence can arise for the degrading and oppressive establishments of Europe. It is our happiness that honorable distinctions flow only from public approbation; and that finds no object in titled dignitaries and pageants. Let

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