"As members of the Society of the Cincinnati it will be our endeavor to cherish those sacred principles of charity and fraternal attachment which our institution inculcates. And while our conduct is thus regulated, we can never want the patronage of the first of patriots and the best of men."
To this address the following answer was returned:
"In reciprocating with gratitude and sincerity the multiplied and affecting gratulations of my fellow-citizens of this commonwealth, they will all of them with justice allow me to say, that none can be dearer to me than the affectionate assurances which you have expressed. Dear, indeed, is the occasion which restores an intercourse with my faithful associates in prosperous and adverse fortune; and enhanced are the triumphs of peace, participated with those whose virtue and valor so largely contributed to procure them. To that virtue and valor your country has confessed her obligations. Be mine the grateful task to add the testimony of a connection which it was my pride to own in the field, and is now my happiness to acknowledge in the enjoyments of peace and freedom.
"Regulating your conduct by those principles which have heretofore governed your actions as men, soldiers, and citizens, you will repeat the obligations conferred on your country, and you will transmit to posterity an example that must command their admiration and grateful praise. Long may you continue to enjoy the endearments of fraternal attachments and the heartfelt happiness of reflecting that you have faithfully done your duty.
"While I am permitted to possess the consciousness of this worth, which has long bound me to you by every tie of affection and esteem, I will continue to be your sincere and faithful friend."
After Washington's return to New York from his tour to the north and east, Mrs. Washington expressed, in the following letter, the gratification and benefit he had derived from his journey. It also presents a delightful view of her feelings and character:
"NEW YORK, December 26th, 1789.
"MY DEAR MADAM:—Your very friendly letter, of the 27th of last month, has afforded me much more satisfaction than all the formal compliments and empty ceremonies of mere etiquette could possibly have done. I am not apt to forget the feelings that have been inspired by my former society with good acquaintances, nor to be insensible to their expressions of gratitude to the President of the United States; for you know me well enough to do me the justice to believe that I am only fond of what comes from the heart. Under a conviction that the demonstrations of respect and affection which have been made to the President originate from that source, I cannot deny that I have taken some interest and pleasure in them. The difficulties which presented themselves to view upon his first entering upon the Presidency, seem thus to be, in some measure, surmounted. It is owing to this kindness of our numerous friends, in all quarters, that my new and unwished-for situation is not indeed a burden to me. When I was much younger, I should probably have enjoyed the innocent gayeties of life as much as most of my age. But I had long since placed all the prospects of my future worldly happiness in the still enjoyments of the fireside at Mount Vernon.
"I little thought, when the war was finished, that any circumstances could possibly have happened which would call the General into public life again. I had anticipated that, from that moment, we should have been left to grow old, in solitude and tranquility, together. That was, my dear madam, the first and dearest wish of my heart; but in that I have been disappointed. I will not, however, contemplate with too much regret disappointments that were inevitable. Though the General's feelings and my own were perfectly in unison with respect to our predilection for private life, yet I cannot blame him for having acted according to his ideas of duty in obeying the voice of his country. The consciousness of having attempted to do all the good in his power, and the pleasure of finding his fellow-citizens so well satisfied with the disinterestedness of his conduct, will doubtless be some compensation for the great sacrifices which I know he has made. Indeed, in his journey from Mount Vernon to this place, in his late tour through the eastern States, by every public and by every private information which has come to him, I am persuaded that he has experienced nothing to make him repent his having acted from what he conceived to be, alone, a sense of indispensable duty. On the contrary, all his sensibility has been awakened in receiving such repeated and unequivocal proofs of sincere regards from all his countrymen.
"With respect to myself, I sometimes think the arrangement is not quite as it ought to have been; that I, who had much rather be at home, should occupy a place with which a great many younger and gayer women would be prodigiously pleased. As my grandchildren and domestic connections make up a great portion of the felicity which I looked for in this world, I shall hardly be able to find any substitute that would indemnify me for the loss of a part of such endearing society. I do not say this because I feel dissatisfied with my present station. No, God forbid! For everybody and everything conspire to make me as contented as possible in it; yet I have seen too much of the vanity of human affairs to expect felicity from the splendid scenes of public life. I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learnt from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us, in our minds, where-so-ever we go. I have two of my grandchildren with me, who enjoy advantages in point of education, and who, I trust, by the goodness of Providence, will continue to be a great blessing to me. My other two grandchildren are with their mother, in Virginia.