“The sentiments with which he has witnessed the struggles of your countrymen for their national emancipation and independence, had been made manifest to the world in a public message to the Congress of the United States.  They are cordially felt by the people of this Union; who, sympathizing with the cause of freedom and independence wherever its standard is unfurled, behold with peculiar interest the display of Grecian energy in defence of Grecian liberties, and the association of heroic exertions, at the present time, with the proudest glories of former ages, in the land of Epaminondas and Philopoemon.

“But while cheering with their best wishes the cause of the Greeks, the United States are forbidden, by the duties of their situation, from taking part in the war, to which their relation is that of neutrality.  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