tical posture of our affairs with foreign
nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my
confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea.

3. I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well
as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination
incompatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety; and am
persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services,
that in the present circumstances of our country you will not
disapprove my determination to retire.

4. The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous
trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of
this trust, I will only say that I have, with good intentions,
contributed towards the organization and administration of the
government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment
was capable. Not unconscious, in the outset, of the inferiority
of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still
more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to
diffidence of myself and every day the increasing weight of
years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement
is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if
any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they
were temporary, I have the consolation to believe, that, while
choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene,
patriotism does not forbid it.

5. In looking forward to the moment which is intended to
terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not
permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of
gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors
it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast
confidence with which it has supported me; and for the
opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my
inviolable attachment by services faithful and persevering,
though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have
resulted to our country from these services, let it always be
remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our
annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated
in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances
sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging,
in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has