Gazette Of The United States

The Address of the Inhabitants of the Town of Wilmington, North-Carolina,
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

SIR,

WE wait on you to offer the tribute of respect, gratitude and esteem, so justly due to your exalted station, your eminent public services, and the extraordinary virtues that adorn your character.

We thank you for the high honor conferred on us by your visit to this place in your tour through the southern states, and salute you with the most cordial welcome to the chief sea port town of the extensive state of North-Carolina.

It may be proper to observe, Sir, that if the progress of agricultural and commercial improvement, in the state of which we are a part, bore any proportion to the great natural resources it contains, this town would probably have surmounted some of the obvious disadvantages of its situation, and become more worthy of the honor it now enjoys by your presence.

Truly sensible that a system of government, at once benignant and efficient, is the sure source of safety and prosperity to every country where it obtains, we anticipate, with great pleasure, the effectual operation of the new constitution, persuading ourselves that the same wisdom, liberality, and genuine patriotism, of which there is so illustrious an example in the conduct of our Chief Magistrate, and have hitherto influenced, will continue to temper the councils of the nation; we ardently hope that admirable political fabric, reared upon the basis of public virtue, may prove a strong pillar of support to the union of the states—improved and strengthened by revolving years, may it be as durable as your fame, and extend the blessings of civil liberty to the latest ages.

Accept, Sir, our humble testimony, in addition to the innumerable instances you have experienced, in proof that the same sentiment pervades the breasts of the citizens of the United States universally, that to you, principally (under Providence) our common country is indebted for liberty and independence, that those invaluable acquisitions are become the means of permanent happiness, is equally an occasion of gratitude to you.

May you long continue on earth your country's glory and human nature's great ornament, and finally, in an immortal state receive from the Great Protector of the Universe, the rich reward that awaits the distinguished benefactors of mankind.

THE PRESIDENT'S ANSWER.

To the INHABITANTS of the town of WILMINGTON.

GENTLEMEN,

APPRECIATING with due value the sentiments you are pleased to express for my station and character, I should fail in candor and respect not to avow the grateful sensations excited by your address, for which I thank you with unfeigned sincerity.

Reasoning from the rapid progress of improvement throughout the United States, and adverting to the facility which every undertaking must derive from a settled system of government, the obviation of those disadvantages, imposed by situation on your town, may, I think, be calculated upon within no very distant period.

The sanction which experience has already given to the salutary influence of the general government on the affairs of the United States, authorizes a well-founded expectation that every aid which a wise and virtuous legislation can render to individual industry, will be afforded, and creates a pleasing hope, that the happiness of her citizens will be commensurate with the growing dignity and importance of our country.

I express a heartfelt sentiment in wishing to your town and its inhabitants a full proportion of general and particular felicity.

G. WASHINGTON.