To you, sir, I owe all the apology I can make.

The urgent necessity I am in of your advice and assistance, indeed of your conduct and direction of the war, is all I can urge; and that is a sufficient justification to myself and to the world.

I hope it will be so considered by yourself.

Mr.M'Henry will have the honour to consult you upon the organization of the army, and upon every thing relating to it." Open instructions, signed by the President, were on the same day delivered to the secretary of war, of which the following is a copy: "It is my desire that you embrace the first opportunity to set out on your journey to Mount Vernon, and wait on General Washington with the commission of Lieutenant General and Commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States, which, by the advice and consent of the senate, has been signed by me.
"The reasons and motives which prevailed on me to venture on such a step as the nomination of this great and illustrious character, whose voluntary resignation alone occasioned my introduction to the office I now hold, were too numerous to be detailed in this letter, and are too obvious and important to escape the observation of any part of America or Europe.

But as it is a movement of great delicacy, it will require all your address to communicate the subject in a manner that shall be inoffensive to his feelings, and consistent with all the respect that is due from me to him.
"If the General should decline the appointment, all the world will be silent, and respectfully acquiesce.