G'o. WASHINGTON.




PROCLAMATIONS.


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially
depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the
national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty
which the people owe to Him, but a duty whose natural influence is
favorable to the promotion of that morality and piety without which
social happiness can not exist nor the blessings of a free government
be enjoyed; and as this duty, at all times incumbent, is so especially
in seasons of difficulty or of danger, when existing or threatening
calamities, the just judgments of God against prevalent iniquity, are
a loud call to repentance and reformation; and as the United States of
America are at present placed in a hazardous and afflictive situation
by the unfriendly disposition, conduct, and demands of a foreign power,
evinced by repeated refusals to receive our messengers of reconciliation
and peace, by depredations on our commerce, and the infliction of
injuries on very many of our fellow-citizens while engaged in their
lawful business on the seas--under these considerations it has appeared
to me that the duty of imploring the mercy and benediction of Heaven
on our country demands at this time a special attention from its