I have to acknowledge your favour of the 10th ultimo. Perfectly satisfied that no consideration save a desire to reestablish your health could induce you to leave the service, I cannot therefore withhold my consent. But, in giving permission to your retiring from the army, I am not only to regret the loss of a good officer, but the cause which makes his resignation necessary. When it is convenient to transmit the settlement of your public accounts, it will receive my final acceptance.
I am, &c.,
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
A few days previous to Colonel Burr's resignation of his commission, he received from the widow of General Montgomery the following letter:—
FROM MRS. J. MONTGOMERY.
Rhinebeck, 7th March, 1779.
SIR,
I should before this have answered your obliging letter, had not the marriage of my eldest sister entirely taken up my time. I now return you, sir, many thanks for your kind offers of service. The sincerity with which they were made would have allowed me to accept them, without fears of giving you trouble, had I not determined to run no more risks, as I have been very unfortunate in my ventures that way.
You have awakened all my sensibility by the praises you bestow on my unfortunate general. He was, indeed, an angel sent us for a moment. Alas! for me, that this world was not more worthy of him—then had I still been the happiest of women, and his friends in stations more equal to their own merits. Reflections like these imbitter continually each day as it passes. But I trust in the same merciful Hand which has held me from sinking in my extreme calamity, that he will still support and make me worthy of a blessed meeting hereafter. Can you excuse, sir, the overflowing of a heart that knows not where to stop when on a subject so interesting?
Mr. Tutard tells me you mean to quit the service. Whenever that happens, you will doubtless have leisure to pay us a visit, which I wish you to believe will give real pleasure to,