with which heaven has endowed you in the cause of liberty, and of everything that man ought to hold sacred at the late General Congress—a conduct so nobly interesting that it must command the applause, not only from this, but succeeding ages. May that sacred flame, that has illuminated your minds and influenced your conduct in projecting and concurring in so many salutary determinations for the preservation of American liberty, ever continue to direct your conduct to the latest period of your lives! May the bright example be fairly transcribed on the hearts and reduced into practice by every Virginian, by every American! May our hearts be open to receive and our arms strong to defend that liberty and freedom, the gift of heaven, now being banished from its latest retreat in Europe! Here let it be hospitably entertained in every breast; here let it take deep root and flourish in everlasting bloom, that under its benign influence the virtuously free may enjoy secure repose and stand forth the scourge and terror of tyranny and tyrants of every order and denomination, till time shall be no more.
"Be pleased, gentlemen, to accept of iheir grateful sense of your important services, and of their ardent prayers for the best interests of this once happy country. And vouchsafe, gentle men, to accept of the same from your most humble servants."
The reply of the members of Congress was as follows:
"To Thomas Lewis and Samuel McDowell, Esqrs.:
"Gentlemen,—Be pleased to transmit to the respectable freeholders of Augusta county our sincere thanks for their affectionate address approving our conduct in the late Continental Congress. It gives us the greatest pleasure to find that our honest endeavors to serve our country on this arduous anci important occasion have met their approbation—a reward fully adequate to our warmest wishes— and the assurances from the brave and spirited people of Augusta, that their hearts and hands shall be devoted to the support of the measures adopted, or hereafter to be taken, by the Congress for the preservation of American liberty, give us the highest satisfaction, and must afford pleasure to every friend of the just rights of mankind. We cannot conclude without acknowledgments to you, gentlemen, for the polite manner in which you have communicated to us the sentiments of your worthy constituents, and are their and
