[Private & confidential] Mount Vernon 16 Sep 1798 My dear Sir, Your very desirable letter dated [undecipherable] the [undecipherable] Instant, with its enclosures, have been duly received. — The Letter was not [undecipherable] read. — The contents of these have filled my Mind and overwhelmed me with the embarrassment — but it is impossible for me to make any move, or correspondence, at this time from the [undecipherable] great risk of going to [undecipherable] without betraying your confidential communications. — Permit me to say clearly however — I know that the measure, on how [undecipherable] objective will be brought to the alternative of submitting it to the President, for [undecipherable] is at what I considered a compact for conduct of acceptance of the appointment and which he was pleased to honor me [undecipherable] to return him my Commission and as that compact was voluntarily, and at the time, was declared to him [undecipherable] your letter written from this place, and the third part of it inserted after it was first drawn, at my request to avoid misconceptions, I conceive I have a right, and accordingly ask to be furnished with a copy of it. — You will recollect too, that my acceptance being conditional, I requested you to take the Commission back, that it might be restored, or annulled according to the President's determination to accept, or reject, the terms on which I had offered leave, and that, but for your assuring me, that it would make no difference whether I retained [strikethrough: [undecipherable]] or returned it and conceiving that the latter might be considered as an evidence of [undecipherable] it would have been done. Subsequent events evince that it would have been a measure of futility for the case in principle is the same, yet such a memorandum of the fact could not so easily have been forgotten or got over. — After the declaration in the President's letter to you, of Aug. the 29. which is also accompanied with other sentiments of an alarming nature) and his avowed readiness to take the responsibility of the measure upon himself, it is not probable that there will be any departure from the resolution he has adopted; — but I should be glad notwithstanding to know the result of the Representation made by the Secretaries, as soon as it comes to hand. — and if there is no impropriety in the request, to be gratified with a sight of the Memorial also. — I am always, with much sincerity, Your affectionate Servant Geo: Washington P.S. If you see no impropriety in the measure, & do not object to it, it would be satisfactory to me to receive a copy of the Powers, or Instructions from the President under which you acted when here James M^cHenry Esq^a Secretary of War.