George Washington Papers

From George Washington to Thomas (Robert Treat) Paine, 1 September 1799

To Thomas (Robert Treat) Paine

Mount Vernon Septr 1st 1799

Sir,

I have duly received your letter of the 12th of August, together with the Oration delivered by you in Boston on the 17th of July.1

I thank you for the very flattering sentiments which you have expressed in your letter respecting myself, and I consider your sending me your Oration as a mark of polite attention which demands my best acknowledgment; and I pray you will be assured, that I am never more gratified than when I see the effusions of genius from some of the rising generation, which promises to secure our National rank in the liter⟨ary wor⟩ld, as I trust their firm, manly and ⟨patriotic⟩ conduct will ever maintain ⟨it with dignity⟩ in the Political. I am Sir Very respectfully Your Most Obedt Servt

Go: Washington

ALS, MWA; ALS (letterpress copy), NN: Washington Papers. The words and letters in angle brackets were taken from the letterpress copy.

Thomas Paine (1773–1811), son of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence from Massachusetts, in 1801 changed his name from Thomas Paine to that of his father, Robert Treat Paine. A firebrand and a poet, Paine at this time was reading law with Theophilus Parsons. The title page of the pamphlet, printed in Boston in 1799, reads: An Oration, Written at the Request of the Young Men of Boston, and Delivered, July 17th, 1799: in Commemoration of the Dissolution of the Treaties, and Consular Convention, between France and the United States of America. By Thomas Paine.

1Letter not found.

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