"Yet, as we cherish the most friendly feelings towards them, and are sincerely disposed to render them any service which may be compatible with our neutrality, it will give us pleasure to learn, from time to time, the actual state of their cause, political and military. Should Mr. Luriottis be enabled and disposed to furnish this information, it may always be communicated through you, and will be received with satisfaction here. The public accounts from that quarter have been of late very scanty, and we shall be glad to obtain any authentic particulars, which may come to your knowledge from this, or through any other channel.
"I am with great respect, Sir, your very humble and obedient servant,
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS."
MR. ADAMS TO MR. LURIOTTIS.
"Department of State, Washington, 18th August, 1823. "Sir: A copy of the letter which you did me the honor of addressing to me, on the 20th of February last, has been transmitted to me by the Minister of the United States at London, and has received the deliberate consideration of the President of the United States.
"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 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 own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors, and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force; the frontlet on her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre, the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit."