From George Washington to Charles Lee, 27 December 1796
To Charles Lee
Tuesday—27th Decr [1796]1
Dear Sir,
I am sorry to hear that your cold is obstinate, & your indisposition continues.
If it will permit you to give a little attention to the Virginia Address, to day, that it may be dispatched by the Post of tomorrow, I would thank you.2
In the moment I received it, I sketched something by way of an answer, but whether I have therein said too much, or too little for the circumstances attending the Address, or whether those circumstances ought to have the least influence in the reply (notwithstanding as you will perceive by the Gazette enclosed, & which I request may be returned, what the temper of the State is, relative to the Administration3) is problematical: Therefore, and because you are better acquainted with the Legislature & politics of Virginia than I am I would be guided by your advice—and accordingly, if your health will allow it, I should be obliged to you for an entire new Draught of an Answer, or such unreserved correction⟨s⟩ of the one sent as you may think is perfectly applicable to the case—civil & unexceptionable.4 I wish you better health and am your sincere friend and Affectionate Servant
Go: Washington
P.S. If you are unable to attend to this matter, pray send the papers back by the bearer.
ALS (letterpress copy), NN: Washington Papers.
1. The year is taken from GW’s docket: “To Ch: Lee 27 Decr ’96.”
2. An undated address from the Virginia legislature to GW reads: “The General Assembly of Virginia, actuated by the affectionate manner in which you have announced your intention of declining a re-election to the high office you now fill, and impressed with those sentiments of friendship and gratitude, which personal merit and public services ought invariably to inspire, cannot silently behold an event, long deprecated by your fellow citizens; and whilst they deplore the resolution which will deprive a nation of its first hope, they are unable to repress those sensations arising from the prospect of her beloved citizen’s return into the arms of his native State. On a review of the whole tenor of your life, they feel themselves stimulated to bestow upon you the best reward which free men can give, and the most grateful, which a mind like your’s, can receive. They trust that the acclamation will be heard by distant nations, and resound to future ages, when with one voice they proclaim, that you have deserved well of your country” (D, DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW).
The address was transmitted to GW with a letter of 17 Dec. from Ludwell Lee, the speaker of the Virginia Senate, and John Wise (d. 1812), a member of the House of Delegates (for Accomack County) from 1791 to January 1801 and the current House speaker. That letter, written from Richmond, reads: “By direction of the General Assembly of Virginia we do ourselves the honor of enclosing to you their address on the subject of your retirement from public life.
“Permit us Sir, to join our prayers, with those of an admiring Nation, to the supreme Ruler of the Universe, that you may long in health enjoy the happiness which your unexampled patriotism and virtue, have so justly entitled you to” (LS, DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW).
The address from the Virginia legislature was written in response to the Farewell Address, in which GW announced that he would not stand for reelection as U.S. president (see Farewell Address, 19 Sept., and the accompanying editorial note). For other similar citizens’ addresses transmitted to GW on the same matter, see Reactions to the Farewell Address, 30 Sept. 1796–27 Jan. 1797. In mid-November, members of the House of Delegates had passed a resolution to present GW with an “address, declatory” of their veneration “for the character, and of gratitude for the services of their most excellent fellow citizen, Geo. Washington” (Mercury [Boston], 9 Dec. 1796; see also , 7–8). A joint committee was appointed to draft the address, which was presented before the House on 8 December. It was approved on the 10th (see , 10, 42). On 16 Dec., the state Senate requested Ludwell Lee “to transmit to the president of the United States a copy of the address agreed to” (, 47). The draft address proved lengthier and more laudatory of GW’s character and service than the final version transmitted to him (see n.3 below).
3. The enclosed newspaper has not been found. GW may have transmitted one of the newspapers that publicized the Virginia legislature’s decision to exclude certain laudatory phrases from its December address to GW. The Federal Gazette & Baltimore Daily Advertiser for 20 Dec. printed the legislature’s address to GW and reported the following: “After the word life, it was proposed to add the words ‘so strongly marked by wisdom in the cabinet, by valor in the field, and by the purest patriotism in both.’ The proposed amendment was rejected—69 for it, 74 against.” Newspapers in December also had printed Virginia congressman William Branch Giles’s unfavorable observations of GW and his policies, which Giles expressed during debates in the U.S. House of Representatives (see U.S. House of Representatives to GW, 16 Dec., and n.3; see also Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser, 17 Dec. 1796).
4. No draft reply to the Virginia legislature from GW or Charles Lee has been found, but Lee evidently provided suggestions for GW’s response. He wrote GW on 28 Dec.: “The alteration is made conformably to your suggestion. The address seems to me to have been studiously intended to prevent a proper expression of sentiments and a respect to yourself seemed to require that nothing beyond mere civility should be found in the answer. The people of Virginia are deluded by designing leaders and infatuated with whatever concerns france; but I yet hope they will ere long see things in a better light” (ALS, DLC:GW).
The final version of GW’s reply to the Virginia legislature is dated “United States” on 27 Dec., and reads: “For your address, be pleased to accept my acknowledgments.
“That any services of mine should have produced a declaration of the friendship, and gratitude of the Legislature of Virginia, cannot but be as pleasing as it is honorable to me whose highest ambition has been, by faithfully and zealously serving my country to the utmost of my abilities, in all the public employments of my life, to merit the approbation of my fellow-citizens.
“It is with unfeigned thankfulness for the goodness of a kin⟨d⟩ Providence, that I look forwa(rd) to the period when the first wishe⟨s⟩ of my heart are to be gratified in returning once more to private occupation, in the shades of rural retirement” (ALS, ViMtvL; ALS [letterpress copy], DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW). GW enclosed this response in a letter from Philadelphia of the same date to Lee and Wise: “The address on the subject of my retirement which you have done me the honor to enclose by direction of the General Assembly of Virginia was received on the 25th.
“My acknowledgment of it is committed to your care—and for the polite and flattering manner in which you have executed the direction of the Legislature I pray you to accept my best thanks, and all the good wishes” (ALS [letterpress copy], DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW).