Gazette Of The United States

ADDRESS of the GOVERNOR and COUNCIL of the Commonwealth of MASSACHUSETTS, to THE PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES.

SIR,

We meet you at this time with our hearts replete with the warmest affection and esteem, to express the high satisfaction we feel in your visit to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

We can never forget the time when in the earliest stage of this war, and the day of our greatest calamity, we saw you at the head of the army of this United States, commanding troops, determined, though then undisciplined, by your wisdom and valor preventing a sanguinary and well appointed army of our enemies from spreading devastation through our country, and sooner than we had reason to expect, obliging them to abandon the capital.

We have since seen you in your high command, superior to the greatest fatigues and hardships successfully conducting our armies through a long war, until our enemies were compelled to submit to terms of peace, and acknowledged that independence which the United States in Congress assembled, had before asserted and proclaimed.

We now have the pleasure of seeing you in a still more exalted station to which you have been elected by the unanimous suffrages of a free, virtuous, and grateful country. From that attachment which you manifestly discovered while in your military command, to the civil liberties of your country, we do assure ourselves that you will ever retain this great object in your view, and that your administration will be happy and prosperous.

It is our earnest prayer that the Divine Benediction may attend you here and hereafter—and we do sincerely wish that you may, through this life, continue to enjoy that greatest of earthly blessings, to be accepted by the multitude of your brethren.

Council-Chamber, Boston, October 27, 1789.

To His Excellency the GOVERNOR, and the Honorable the Members of COUNCIL of the Commonwealth of MASSACHUSETTS.

GENTLEMEN,

TO communicate the peculiar pleasure which I derive from your affectionate welcome of me to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, requires a force of expression beyond that which I possess.—I am truly grateful for your goodness towards me, and I desire to thank you with the unfeigned sincerity of a feeling heart.

Your obliging remembrance of my military services is among the highest compensations they can receive—and, if rectitude of intention may authorize the hope, the favorable anticipation, which you are pleased to express of my civil administration, will not, I trust, be disappointed.

It is your happiness, Gentlemen, to preside in the councils of a Commonwealth, where the pride of independence is well assimilated with the duties of society—and where the industry of the citizen gives the fullest assurance of public respect and private prosperity. I have observed too, with singular satisfaction, so becoming an attention to the Militia of the State, as presents the fairest prospect of support to the invaluable objects of national safety and peace.—Long may these blessings be continued to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts! and may you, Gentlemen, in your individual capacities, experience every satisfaction, which can result from public honor and private happiness.

G. WASHINGTON.

Boston, October 27, 1789.