In answer to your letter, requesting such information on the Subject of the valedectory address which was published in 1796, with the signature of George Washington as it may be in my power to give, I beg leave to state, that the papers bequeathed to me, so far as I have examined them, afford no ground whatever for attributing the composition of that paper to any other than the person whose Signature it bears. I have heard that a claim to the authorship of it, by another person, has been asserted, but I am unacquainted with the precise ground upon which it is founded. I am very respectfully Gentn yr mo. ob. Servt