No other return is expected or wished, for this offer, than that you will accept it with the same freedom and good will with which it is made, and that you may not even consider it in the light of an obligation, or mention it as such; for, be assured, that from me it will never be known.

1769.

PUBLIC BENEFICENCE.

If it should please the General Assembly,* to permit me to turn the destination of the fund vested in me, from my private emolument, to objects of a PUBLIC nature, it will be my study, in selecting these, to prove the sincerity of my gratitude for the honor conferred on me, by preferring such as may appear most subservient to the enlightened and patriotic views of the legislature.

1785.

ALEXANDRIA ACADEMY.

To the trustees. . . . I give four thousand dollars, or, in other words, twenty of the shares which I hold in the Bank of Alexandria, toward the support of a FREE SCHOOL, established at, or annexed to, the Aca

* The General Assembly of Virginia made him a donation, testifying their sense of his merits. It consisted of fifty shares in the Potomac Company, and a hundred shares in the James River Company.

demy; for the purpose of educating such Orphan Children, or the children of such other poor and indigent persons as are unable to accomplish it with their own means, and who, in the judgment of the trustees of the seminary, are best entitled to the benefit of the donation.

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.

I give the fifty shares which I hold in the Potomac Company, towards the endowment of a University, to be established within the limits of the District of Columbia, under the auspices of the General Government, if that government should incline to extend a fostering hand towards it.

LIBERTY HALL ACADEMY.*

The hundred shares which I hold in the James River Company, I give to and for the use and benefit of Liberty Hall Academy, in the county of Rockbridge, in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

*Now called Washington College.

6. CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROP Y.

Man is one:

And he hath one great heart.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY.

I received with great pleasure thy letter, containing an extract of another from General Washington, in which that hero, who effected, with little bloodshed, the greatest revolution in history, breathes the sentiments of true philanthropy.

A warrior clothed with humanity and wisdom, is the symbol of Minerva; and few have united them. Turenne had courage and some degree of humanity; but he it was that burnt the Palatinate, and had the Nero-like pleasure of seeing thirteen cities in flames. Scipio's humanity was stained with the destruction of Carthage; and Rome fell for want of a rival. Alexander the Great, and the modern Frederick, had their stains of cruelty. But YOUR HERO, without the lictor of Cincinnatus, was obeyed,-conquers, and retires, without the foul stain of blood.

Might I presume fipon communicating to him the cordial approbation his humane sentiments have impressed upon me? DR. LETSOM, of London, a member of the Society of Friends.

RECONCILIATION.

Every exertion of my colleagues and myself will be extended, to the re-establishment of peace and harmony between the mother-country and the colonies.

1775.

THE CAUSE OF THE OPPRESSED.

My anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes are irresistibly attracted, whensoever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom.

Our citizen-soldiers have impressed a useful lesson of patriotism on mankind.

UNIVERSAL SYMPATHY.

The voice of mankind is with me.

...

Happy, thrice happy shall they be pronounced, . who have assisted in protecting THE RIGHTS OF HUMAN NATURE, and establishing AN ASYLUM FOR THE POOR

AND OPPRESSED OF ALL NATIONS AND RELIGIONS.

My policy has been, to cultivate PEACE WITH

ALL THE WORLD.

For me to express my sentiments, with respect to the administration of the concerns of another government, might incur a charge of stepping beyond the line of prudence. But the principles of humanity will justify an avowal of my regret, and I do regret exceedingly, that any causes whatever should have produced and continued until this time a war, more bloody, more expensive, more calamitous, and more pregnant with events, than modern or perhaps any other times can furnish an example of. And I most sincerely and devoutly wish, that the exertions of those having this object in view, may effect what HUMAN NATURE cries aloud for,-a GENERAL Peace.

THE CAUSE OF SUFFERING HUMANITY.

I observe with singular satisfaction, the cases in which your * benevolent institution has been instrumental, in recalling some of our fellow-creatures, as it were, from beyond the gates of eternity, and has given occasion for the hearts of parents and friends to leap for joy.

The provision made for the preservation of shipwrecked mariners, is also highly estimable, in the view of every philanthropic mind, and greatly consolatory to that suffering part of the community. These things will draw upon you the blessings of those who were nigh to perish.

These works of charity and good will towards men reflect, in my estimation, great lustre upon the authors, and presage an era of still further improve

ments.

How pitiful, in the eye of reason and religion, is that false ambition, which desolates the world with fire and sword, for the purposes of conquest and fame, when compared to the milder virtues of making our neighbors and our fellow-men as happy as their frail condition and perishable nature will permit them to be!

*The Massachusetts Humane Society.