The affectionate sentiments you express on my retirement from the high office conferred upon me by my country, are gratefully received and acknowledged with thankfulness. Your approbation of the various measures which have been pursued, cannot but be highly consolatory to myself, and encouraging to future functionaries, who will see that their honest endeavors for the public good will receive due credit with their constituents. That the great and leading measure respecting our foreign intercourse was the most salutary alternative, and preferable to the submission of our rights as a free and independent republic, or to a war at that period, cannot be doubted by candid minds. Great and good effects have certainly flowed from it, and greater would have been produced, had they not been, in some degree, frustrated by unfaithful citizens. If, in my retirement to the humble station of a private citizen, I am accompanied with the esteem and approbation of my fellow citizens, trophies obtained by the blood-stained steel, or the tattered flags of the tented field, will never be envied. The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government. I salute you, fellow citizens, with every wish for your welfare, and the perpetual duration of our government, in all the purity of its republican principles. TO JAMES HOCHIE, ESQ., PRESIDENT OF THE ANCIENT PLYMOUTH SOCIETY OF NEW LONDON. MONTICELLO, April 2, 1809. SIR,--I have duly received your favor of March 17th, covering resolutions of the Ancient Plymouth Society of New London, approving my conduct, as well during the period of my late administration, as the preceding portion of my public services. Our lot has been cast in times which called for the best exertions of all our citizens to recover and preserve the rights which nature had given them; and we may say with truth, that the mass of our fellow citizens have performed with zeal and effect the duties called for. If I have been fortunate enough to give satisfaction in the performance of those allotted to me by our country, I find an ample reward in the assurances of that satisfaction. Possessed of the blessing of self-government, and of such a portion of civil liberty as no other civilized nation enjoys, it now behooves us to guard and preserve them by a continuance of the sacrifices and exertions by which they were acquired, and especially to nourish that union which is their sole guarantee. I pray you to accept for yourself and your associates the assurances of my high consideration and respect. TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR WRIGHT. MONTICELLO, April 3, 1809.