lity. At peace
themselves with all the world, their established policy, and the
obligations of the laws of nations, preclude them from becoming voluntary
auxiliaries to a cause which would involve them in war.

"If in the progress of events the Greeks should be enabled to establish
and organize themselves as an independent nation, the United States will
be among the first to welcome them, in that capacity, into the general
family; to establish diplomatic and commercial relations with them, suited
to the mutual interests of the two countries; and to recognize, with
special satisfaction, their constituted state in the character of a sister
Republic.

"I have the honor to be, with distinguished consideration, Sir, your very
humble and obedient servant,
"JOHN QUINCY ADAMS."

The sentiments, in regard to the foreign policy of our Government, which
Mr. Adams embodies in this correspondence, he had previously expressed in
an oration delivered in the city of Washington, on the 4th of July, 1821,
of which the following is an extract:--

"America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has
invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of
honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity; she has
uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless, and often to
disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and
equal rights; she has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a
single exception, respected the independence of other nations while
asserting and maintaining her own; she has abstained from interference in
the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to
which she clings as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has
seen that probably for centuries to come all the contests of that
Aceldama, the European world, will be contests of inveterate power and
emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been
or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her
prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She
is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all--she is the
champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general
cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her
example:--she well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than
her ow