[inserted- in different hand: Washington] Mount Vernon April 10th 1789

My dear Sir,

The cloth and Buttons which accompanied your favor of the 30th. Ult, came safe by Colo. Hanson; and really do credit to the manufactures of this Country. – As it requires Six more of the large (engraved) button to trim the Coat in the manner I wish it to be, I would thank you, my good Sir, for procuring that number and retaining them in your hands until my arrival in New York. –

Not to contemplate (though it is a serious object) the loss which you say the General Government will sustain in the article of Impost, the stupor, or listlessness with which our public measures seem to be pervaded, is, to me, matter of deep regret. – Indeed it has so strange an appearance that I cannot but wonder how men who sollicit public confidence or who are even prevailed upon to accept of it can reconcile such conduct with their own feelings of propriety. – The delay is inauspicious to say the best of it- and the World must contemp it. – With sentiments of the sincerest friendship, I am

Yr. Affectionate
Go: Washington

PS. The advices by the Mail of this Evening will, surely, inform us of a Quoram in both Houses of Congress. –

[docket]
Mount Vernon 10th of
April. 1789

[address]
The Honble
Majr. Genl Knox
New – York.

Notes: Published in Fitzpatrick, John C. The Writings of George Washington. v. 30: 280.