I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world.

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize.

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit.

I regret exceedingly that the disputes between the protestants and Roman Catholics should be carried to the serious alarming height mentioned in your letters. Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause; and I was not without hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy of the present age would have put an effectual stop to contentions of this kind.

To place any dependence upon militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff.

May Heaven to this Union continue its beneficence

[L]eave nothing to the uncertainty of procuring a warlike apparatus at the moment of public danger.