Our lot has been cast, by the favor of heaven, in a country and under circumstances, highly auspicious to our peace and prosperity, and where no pretence can arise for the degrading and oppressive establishments of Europe. It is our happiness that honorable distinctions flow only from public approbation; and that finds no object in titled dignitaries and pageants. Let us then, fellow citizens, endeavor carefully to guard this happy state of things, by keeping a watchful eye over the disaffection of wealth and ambition to the republican principles of our constitution, and by sacrificing all our local and personal interests to the cultivation of the Union, and maintenance of the authority of the laws. My warmest thanks are due to you, fellow citizens, for the affectionate sentiments expressed in your address, and my prayers will ever be offered for your welfare and happiness. TO THE CITIZENS OF ALLEGHANY COUNTY, IN MARYLAND. MONTICELLO, March 31, 1809. The sentiments of attachment, respect, and esteem, expressed in your address of the 20th ult., have been read with pleasure, and would sooner have received my thanks, but for the mass of business engrossing the last moments of a session of Congress. I am gratified by your approbation of our efforts for the general good, and our endeavors to promote the best interests of our country, and to place them on a basis firm and lasting. The measures respecting our intercourse with foreign nations were the result, as you suppose, of a choice between two evils, either to call and keep at home our seamen and property, or suffer them to be taken under the edicts of the belligerent powers. How a difference of opinion could arise between these alternatives is still difficult to explain on any acknowledged ground; and I am persuaded, with you, that when the storm and agitation characterizing the present moment shall have subsided, when passion and prejudice shall have yielded to reason its usurped place, and especially when posterity shall pass its sentence on the present times, justice will be rendered to the course which has been pursued. To the advantages derived from the choice which was made will be added the improvements and discoveries made and making in the arts, and the establishments in domestic manufacture, the effects whereof will be permanent and diffused through our wide-extended continent. That we may live to behold the storm which seems to threaten us, pass like a summer's cloud away, and that yourselves may continue to enjoy all the blessings of peace and prosperity, is my fervent prayer. TO THE REPUBLICAN CITIZENS OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND, ASSEMBLED AT HAGERSTOWN ON THE 6TH INSTANT. MONTICELLO, March 31, 1809.