The individualism, the uncompromising nature, the
aggressiveness, and the natural love of expansion, which were traits
of John Quincy Adams, became of highest service to his country in
the diplomatic relations of the next few years.
Hardly a year elapsed after this defiance to England when Adams met
the claims of Russia likewise with a similar challenge. On September
4, 1821, the Russian czar issued a ukase announcing the claim of
Russia on the Pacific coast north of the fifty-first degree, and
interdicting to the commercial vessels of other powers the approach
on the high seas within one hundred Italian miles of this claim.
[Footnote: U. S. Foreign Relations (1890), 439.] This assertion of
Russian monopoly, which would, in effect, have closed Bering Sea,
met with peremptory refusal by Adams, and on July 17, 1823, having
in mind Russia's posts in California, he informed the minister,
Baron Tuyl, "that we should contest the right of Russia to any
territorial establishment on this continent, and that we should
assume distinctly the principle that the American continents are no
longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments.
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