OF OLD NEW YORK

I pray that Heaven raay bestow its choicest blessing
upon your City—that the devastations of war, in which
you found it, raay soon be without a trace—that a well
regulated and beneficial commerce may enrich your citi-
zens and that your State (at present the seat of the
Empire) raay set such examples of wisdora and liberality
as shall have a tendency to give perraanency to the Union
at horae and credit and respectability to it abroad, the
accomplishment of which is a remaining wish and the
primary object of all ray desires.

With Washington as President and New York as the
seat of the government of the Nation we come upon a
chapter full of interest from the standpoint of our City
and of our Society of Tammany. Here he confirmed
and added to the great impression he had already made
upon the Country as a Statesman and a Patriot, undimmed
even by the glory of the record he had made as a soldier.
Here he continued to display his remarkable qualities,
his high dignity without austerity, his pure piety without
narrowness and his strong leadership.
 

Fraunces'  Tavern,  Broad and Pearl  Streets,   where Washington
took  farewell of  his  officers,   1784

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