I have duly recd. your letter communicating the Resolutions in which "the National Republican Convention of Virginia at Staunton" has been pleased to express its approbation of my public services, and its kind wishes for my personal welfare. I cannot be insensible to the value I ought to place on opinions so favorable and sentiments so friendly coming from a body rendered so respectable by the members composing it, and I tender all the acknowledgements which I feel to be due from me. If it was my lot to be in any degree instrumental in promoting the substitution of our present Constitutional system, for the inadequate one which preceded it, my participation in the great work, conscious as I am of its being overrated by the partiality of the Convention, could not fail to be an increasing source of gratifying recollection as the fruits of the change have been signalized in the prosperity of our Country.

For the obliging terms in which you have made the communication I pray you to accept my thanks with assurances of my esteem & my good wishes.