When an application was made to Mr. Adams, as Secretary of State, through Mr. Rush, our Minister at London, by an Agent of Greece, for aid from the United States, he was compelled, on principles above stated, to withhold the required assistance.  The correspondence which grew out of this application is sufficiently interesting to find a place in these pages:—­

“Andreas Luriottis, Envoy of the Provisional Government of Greece, to the Hon. John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State to the United States of America.

Sir:—­I feel no slight emotion, while, in behalf of Greece, my country, struggling for independence and liberty, I address myself to the United States of America.

“The independence for which we combat, you have achieved.  The liberty to which we look, with anxious solicitude, you have obtained, and consolidated in peace and in glory.

“Yet Greece, old Greece, the seat of early civilization and freedom, stretches out her hands, imploringly, to a land which sprung into being, as it were, ages after her own lustre had been extinguished! and ventures to hope that the youngest and most vigorous sons of liberty, will regard, with no common sympathy, the efforts of the descendants of the heir and the elder born, whose precepts and whose example have served—­though insufficient, hitherto, for our complete regeneration—­to regenerate half a world.

“I know, Sir, that the sympathies of the generous people of the United States have been extensively directed towards us; and since I have reached this country, an interview with their Minister, Mr. Rush, has served to convince me more strongly, how great their claim is on our gratitude and our affection.  May I hope that some means may be found to communicate these our feelings, of which I am so proud to be the organ?  We will still venture to rely on their friendship.  We would look to their individual, if not to their national, co-operation.  Every, the slightest, assistance under present circumstances, will aid the progress of the great work of liberty; and if, standing, as we have stood, alone and unsupported, with everything opposed to us, and nothing to encourage us but patriotism, enthusiasm, and sometimes even despair:  if thus we have gone forward, liberating our provinces, one after another, and subduing every force which has been directed against us, what may we not do with the assistance for which we venture to appeal to the generous and the free?

“Precipitated by circumstances into that struggle for independence, which, ever since the domination of our cruel and reckless tyrants, had never ceased to be the object of our vows and prayers, we have, by the blessing of God, freed a considerable part of Greece from the ruthless invaders.  The Peloponnesus, Etolia, Carmania, Attica, Phocida, Boetia, and the Islands of the Archipelago and Candia, are nearly free.  The armies and the fleets which have been sent against us, have been subdued by the valor of our troops and our marine.  Meanwhile we have organized a government, founded upon popular suffrages:  and you will probably have seen how closely our organic law assimilates to that constitution under which your nation so happily and so securely lives.