Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

EDENTON, January 12.

Address of the legislature of the state of North-Carolina, to his excellency George Washington, Esq. President of the United States.

The general assembly of North-Carolina, apprised of your intention to retire from office, feel it a duty for themselves and their constituents, to express the high sense they entertain of the vast advantages derived from your exertions, to the cause of the freedom of America, and of mankind. To secure the national blessings of peace and independence, to rescue a people from slavery on the one hand, and to guard them from anarchy and faction on the other, are the great objects to which your efforts have been long, and successfully directed, amidst the perils of war and the cares of government, in the most difficult, exalted and important stations. You have finished the task, and have amply discharged every claim of your country, to your services and talents. We regret, however, that your firm and experienced hand should, at this juncture, be withdrawn from the helm of affairs. But after you have devoted the best of your days to our felicity, it ill becomes us to complain of a step, which is necessary to your own. We therefore sincerely congratulate you on the near prospects of your return to the leisure of retirement and the tranquility of private life, which the voice and the distresses of your country first tempted you to forsake.

We consider your last address as having added to the proofs of your patriotism, and to the debt of gratitude and veneration, which we previously owed you. It takes an affectionate and parental leave of your fellow-citizens, its councils are dictated by the deepest political wisdom, and its sentiments flow from a heart replete with solicitude for the welfare of its country. And well may you be interested in the happiness of a people, whose fate has long been connected with your own, and in whose toils and perils, success and glory, you have so largely shared.

As to ourselves we devoutly wish that you may long live to see and to enjoy that national prosperity for which America is so much indebted to your exertions. Retired from office, and divested of power, you will still reign in the hearts of your fellow-citizens, and continue to receive a tribute of applause from a grateful nation.