ADDRESSES, MESSAGES, AND REPLIES
by Thomas Jefferson
_Response to the Citizens of Albemarle_
February 12, 1790
GENTLEMEN,
The testimony of esteem with which you are pleased to honour my
return to my native country fills me with gratitude and pleasure.
While it shews that my absence has not lost me your friendly
recollection, it holds out the comfortable hope that when the hour of
retirement shall come, I shall again find myself amidst those with
whom I have long lived, with whom I wish to live, and whose affection
is the source of my purest happiness. Their favor was the door thro'
which I was ushered on the stage of public life; and while I have
been led on thro' it's varying scenes, I could not be unmindful of
those who assigned me my first part.
My feeble and obscure exertions in their service, and in the
holy cause of freedom, have had no other merit than that they were my
best. We have all the same. We have been fellow-labourers and
fellow-sufferers, and heaven has rewarded us with a happy issue from
our struggles.
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