long want of health, occasioned by the extreme of fatigue & loss of blood, in assisting to Vindicate the rights & liberties of America from her coldest, to her hotest sun, deprived me the honor & pleasure, of attending your Excellency into New York, & now adds to my unhappiness, by preventing me from paying you my personal respects in the City of Phila., however I have one consolation i.e. that my Countrymen will have an Opportunity of expressing (not only by words but actions) the gratitude of their hearts, to their Chief and Protector!

Permit me Sir to assure you from my own knowledge, that your address has had more influence upon their councils, than Volumns from an other quarter:& I fondly flatter myself, that the same influence will shortly pervade the Councils of every State in the Confederation!

My physicians affect to have discovered a happy change in my constitution, which affords a pleasing prospect of returning health, I shall therefore not bid you a final adieu, but rather anticipate the pleasure of paying frequent visits at Mount Vernon as I occasionally pass & repass, from this place to my Estate in Georgia: In the interim permit me to assure your Excellency, that I feel with gratitude, the many favors you have confered upon me: & that I am with the highest esteem Your Most Obt Humbe Servt