I learn, with the liveliest sentiments of gratitude and respect, your approbation of my conduct, in the various charges which my country has been pleased to confide to me at different times; and especially that the administration of our public affairs, since my accession to the chief magistracy, has been so far satisfactory, that my continuance in that office after its present term, would be acceptable to you. But, that I should lay down my charge at a proper period, is as much a duty as to have borne it faithfully. If some termination to the services of the chief magistrate be not fixed by the constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally for years, will in fact become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance. Believing that a representative government, responsible at short periods of election, is that which produces the greatest sum of happiness to mankind, I feel it a duty to do no act which shall essentially impair that principle; and I should unwillingly be the person who, disregarding the sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor, should furnish the first example of prolongation beyond the second term of office. Truth also obliges me to add, that I am sensible of that decline which advancing years bring on; and feeling their physical, I ought not to doubt their mental effect. Happy if I am the first to perceive and obey this admonition of nature, and to solicit a retreat from cares too great for the wearied faculties of age. Declining a re-election on grounds which cannot but be approved, it will be the great comfort of my future days, and the satisfactory reward of a service of forty years, to carry into retirement such testimonies as you have been pleased to give, of the approbation and good will of my fellow citizens generally. And I supplicate the Being in whose hands we all are, to preserve our country in freedom and independence, and to bestow on yourselves the blessings of his favor. TO THE SOCIETY OF TAMMANY, OR COLUMBIAN ORDER, NO. 1, OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. February 29, 1808. I have received your address, fellow citizens, and, thankful for the expressions so personally gratifying to myself, I contemplate with high satisfaction the ardent spirit it breathes of love to our country, and of devotion to its liberty and independence. The crisis in which it is placed, cannot but be unwelcome to those who love peace, yet spurn at a tame submission to wrong. So fortunately remote from the theatre of European contests, and carefully avoiding to implicate ourselves in them, we had a right to hope for an exemption from the calamities which have afflicted the contending nations, and to be permitted unoffendingly to pursue paths of industry and peace.