For the completion of the great purposes which a grateful country has assigned you, long, very long, may your invaluable life be preserved.

And as the admiring world, while considering you as a soldier, have long wanted a comparison, may your virtue and talents as a statesman leave them without a parallel.
"It is not in words to express an attachment founded like ours.

We can only say that when soldiers, our greatest pride was a promptitude of obedience to your orders; as citizens, our supreme ambition is to maintain the character of firm supporters of that noble fabric of federal government over which you preside.
"As members of the society of the Cincinnati, it will be our endeavour 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 valour so largely contributed to procure them.