1. Reed’s letter of 23 Dec. has not been found.

2. Reed and his fellow members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council presented GW with the following address: “ADDRESSES are, too often, the language of unmeaning compliment and empty ceremony; but we approach you, Sir, with far different sentiments, such as become freemen, in the hour of gratitude and affection, to express, and a patriot General to receive. The present contest is the most important to the liberty of mankind that has ever happened in the world. And while we acknowledge with reverence the favour of Providence in other respects, we cannot overlook its goodness in giving and preserving a life endeared to America by a series of services, virtues and successes, which have yet no parallel in the annals of mankind.

“Pennsylvania, Sir, in particular has had too recent experience of the blessings flowing from those services and virtues, to be silent when her capital is again favoured with your presence. And we express but too imperfectly our own, and the feelings of her virtuous sons, whom we now have the honour to represent, while we offer our most ardent wishes, that, as you have been the great deliverer of our common country, you may long live its first and most illustrious citizen; and at a late, a very late hour, receive the reward which Heaven alone can bestow upon merit so transcendent” (Pennsylvania Gazette [Philadelphia], 5 Jan. 1779).

GW responded: “I FEEL myself at a loss to express the grateful sense I have of the too indulgent testimony of the attention and esteem, with which you have been pleased to honour me in your polite address. If my well meant endeavours in this important contest have been in any degree conducive to the safety of America in general, or the advantage of this state in particular, they are more than repaid by so flattering and honourable a mark of the approbation of its virtuous citizens. My reverence for the Representatives of the people makes me happy in receiving it through that channel, and my first wish is, by fresh proofs of my zeal, to justify a continuance of their confidence. I ardently hope, that a perseverance in the same patriotic dispositions and exertions throughout these states, which have already brought our affairs so far towards a prosperous conclusion, will speedily crown them with final success, and establish the happiness of our common country on the firm basis of peace, freedom and independence” (Pennsylvania Gazette [Philadelphia], 5 Jan. 1779).