John Quincy Adams: “The delay in the transmission of this communication is attributable to the earnest desire which I have entertained of…”

I would have sent ministers to the meeting had it been merely to give them such advice as they might have desired, even with reference to their own interests, not involving ours.

But an unsettled coast of many degrees of latitude forming a part of our own territory and a flourishing commerce and fishery extending to the islands of the Pacific and to China still require that the protecting power of the Union should…

The purpose of the meeting itself is to deliberate upon the great and common interests of several new and neighboring nations.

These papers were prepared at the close of the last session of Congress, at too late a period to be then acted upon.