These are points in your
administration which the historian will not fail to seize, to expand,
and teach posterity to dwell upon with delight. Nor will he forget our
peace with the civilized world, preserved through a season of uncommon
difficulty and trial; the good-will cultivated with the unfortunate
aborigines of our country, and the civilization humanely extended among
them; the lesson taught the inhabitants of the coast of Barbary, that
we have the means of chastising their piratical encroachments, and
awing them into justice; and that theme, on which, above all others, the
historic genius will hang with rapture, the liberty of speech and of the
press, preserved inviolate, without which genius and science are given
to man in vain.
In the principles on which you have administered the government, we see
only the continuation and maturity of the same virtues and abilities,
which drew upon you in your youth the resentment of Dunmore. From the
first brilliant and happy moment of your resistance to foreign tyranny,
until the present day, we mark with pleasure and with gratitude the same
uniform, consistent character, the same warm and devoted attachment
to liberty and the republic, the same Roman love of your country, her
rights, her peace, her honor, her prosperity.
How blessed will be the retirement into which you are about to go! How
deservedly blessed will it be! For you carry with you the richest of all
rewards, the recollection of a life well spent in the service of your
country, and proofs the most decisive, of the love, the gratitude, the
veneration of your countrymen.
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