summoned by my country, whose voice I
can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had
chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with
an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years--a retreat
which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me
by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions
in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other
hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of
my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and
most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his
qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who
(inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the
duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his
own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is
that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just
appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All
I dare hope is that if, in executing this task, I have been too
much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an
affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of
my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity
as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me,
my error will be palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its
consequences be judged by my country with some share of the partiality
in which they originated.

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the
public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly
improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications
to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the
councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every
human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and
happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by
themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument
employed in its administration to execute with success the functions
allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of
every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your
sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at
large less than either. No people c