"Mr. Chairman—There are some things which, to be well done, must be promptly done. If we even determine to do the thing that is now proposed, we may do it too late Sir, I am not of those who are for withholding aid when it is most urgently needed, and when the stress is past, and the aid no longer necessary, overwhelming the sufferers with caresses. I will not stand by and see my fellow-man drowning, without stretching out a hand to help him, till he has, by his own efforts and presence of mind, reached the shore in safety, and then encumber him with aid. With suffering Greece, now is the crisis of her fate—her great, it may be her last struggle. Sir, while we sit here deliberating, her destiny may be decided. The Greeks, contending with ruthless oppressors, turn their eyes to us, and invoke us, by their ancestors, by their slaughtered wives and children, by their own blood poured out like water, by the hecatombs of dead they have heaped up, as it were, to heaven; they invoke, they implore from us some cheering sound, some look of sympathy, some token of compassionate regard. They look to us as the great Republic of the earth—and they ask us, by our common faith, whether we can forget that they are struggling, as we once struggled, for what we now so happily enjoy? I cannot say, sir, they will succeed; that rests with heaven. But, for myself, sir, if I should to-morrow hear that they have failed—that their last phalanx had sunk beneath the Turkish cimetar, that the flames of their last city had sunk in its ashes, and that nought remained but the wide, melancholy waste where Greece once was—I should still reflect, with the most heartfelt satisfaction, that I have asked you, in the name of seven millions of freemen, that you would give them, at least, the cheering of one friendly voice."
The committee having in charge the raising of a fund for the assistance of the Greeks, in New York, addressed a circular to the venerable ex-President John Adams, to which they received the following reply:—
"Quincy, Dec. 29, 1823. "GENTLEMEN:—I have received your circular of the 12th inst., and I thank you for the honor you have done me in addressing it to me. Be assured my heart beats in unison with yours, and with those of your constituents, and I presume with all the really civilized part of mankind, in sympathy with the Greeks, suffering, as they are, in the great cause of liberty and humanity. The gentlemen of Boston have taken measures to procure a general subscription in their favor, through the State, and I shall contribute my mite with great pleasure. In the meantime I wish you, and all other gentlemen engaged in the virtuous work, all the success you or they can wish; for I believe no effort in favor of virtue will be ultimately lost.
"I have the honor to be, Gentlemen, your very humble Servant,
"JOHN ADAMS."
The sympathies of John Quincy Adams were ardently enlisted in behalf of the Greek Revolution. But with a prudence and wisdom which characterized all his acts, he threw his influence against any direct interference on the part of the Government of the United States. It would have been a departure from that neutral policy, in regard to European conflicts, on which the country had acted from the commencement of our national existence, alike injurious and dangerous. He knew if we once entered into these wars, on any pretext whatever, a door would be opened for foreign entanglements and endless conflicts, which would result in standing armies, immense national debts, and the long trail of evils of which they are the prolific source.
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.