extravagance in principle. In any less perilous extremity than was
presented by this menaced intrusion of combined Europe he followed
rigidly the wise rule of non-interference. For many years before this
stage was reached he had been holding in difficult check the
enthusiasts who, under the lead of Mr. Clay, would have embroiled us
with Spain and Portugal. Once he was made the recipient of a very
amusing proposition from the Portuguese minister, that the United
States and Portugal, as "the two great powers of the western hemisphere,"
should concert together a grand American system. The drollery pf (p. 134)
this notion was of a kind that Mr. Adams could appreciate, though
to most manifestations of humor he was utterly impervious. But after
giving vent to some contemptuous merriment he adds, with a just and
serious pride: "As to an American system, we have it; we constitute
the whole of it; there is no community of interests or of principles
between North and South America." This sound doctrine was put forth in
1820; and it was only modified in the manner that we have seen during
a brief period in 1823, in face of the alarming vision not only of
Spain and Portugal restored to authority, but of Russia in possession
of California and more, France in possession of Mexico, and perhaps
Great Britain becoming mistress of Cuba.

So far as European affairs were concerned, Mr. Adams always and
consistently refused to become entangled in them, even in the slightest
and most indirect manner. When the cause of Greek liberty aroused the
usual throng of noisy advocates for active interference, he contented
himself with expressions of cordial sympathy, accompanied by perfectly
distinct and explicit statements that under no circumstances could any
aid in the way of money or auxiliary forces be expected from this
country. Neutrals we were and would remain in any and all (p. 135)
European quarrels. When Stratford Canning urged, with the uttermost
measure of persistence of which even he was capable, that for the
suppression of the slave trade some such arrangement might be made as
that of mixed tribunals for the trial of slave-trading vessels, and
alleged that divers European powers were uniting for this purpose, Mr.
Adams suggested, as an insuperable obstacle, "the general extra-European
policy of the United States--a policy which they had always pursued as
best suited to their own interests, and best adapted to harmonize with
t