Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life.

True friendship is a plant of slow growth.

History and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.

Submit your sentiments with diffidence. A dictatorial style, though it may carry conviction, is always accompanied with disgust.

Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.

We ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly, and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own.

It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.