That your retirement may be as happy as your life has been virtuous and
useful; that our youth may see, in the blissful close of your days, an
additional inducement to form themselves on your model, is the devout
and earnest prayer of your fellow-citizens who compose the General
Assembly of Virginia.
LETTER CXCII.--TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, March 30, 1826
TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
Monticello, March 30, 1826.
Dear Sir,
I am thankful for the very interesting message and documents of
which you have been so kind as to send me a copy, and will state my
recollections as to the particular passage of the message to which you
ask my attention. On the conclusion of peace, Congress, sensible of
their right to assume independence, would not condescend to ask its
acknowledgment from other nations, yet were willing, by some of the
ordinary international transactions, to receive what would imply that
acknowledgment. They appointed commissioners, therefore, to propose
treaties of commerce to the principal nations of Europe. I was then
a member of Congress, was of the committee appointed to prepare
instructions for the commissioners, was, as you suppose, the draughtsman
of those actually agreed to, and was joined with your father and Doctor
Franklin to carry them into execution. But the stipulations making
part of these instructions, which respected privateering, blockades,
contraband, and freedom of the fisheries, were not original conceptions
of mine.
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