The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
RETIREMENT / SECRETARY OF STATE
Having had the honor of communicating to you in my letter of the last
of July, my purpose of returning from the office of Secretary of
State, at the end of the month of September, you were pleased, for
particular reasons, to wish its postponement to the close of the year.
That term being now arrived, and my propensities to retirement
becoming daily more and more irresistible, I now take the liberty of
resigning the office into your hands. Be pleased to accept with it my
sincere thanks for all the indulgences which you have been so good as
to exercise towards me in the discharge of its duties. Conscious that
my need of them has been great, I have still ever found them greater,
without any other claim on my part, than a firm pursuit of what has
appeared to me to be right, and a thorough disdain of all means which
were not as open and honorable, as their object was pure. I carry into
my retirement a lively sense of your goodness, and shall continue
gratefully to remember it. With very sincere prayers for your life,
health and tranquillity, I pray you to accept the homage of the great
and constant respect and attachment with which I have the honor to be,
dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
to George Washington, 31 December 1793
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