George III. replied with dignity, but not without some manifestations of
excitement:--

"The circumstances of this audience are so extraordinary, the language you
have now held is so extremely proper, and the feelings you have discovered
so justly adapted to the occasion, that I must say that I not only receive
with pleasure the assurances of the friendly disposition of the People of
the United States, but I am very glad the choice has fallen upon you to be
their Minister. I wish you, sir, to believe, and that it may be understood
in America, that I have done nothing in the late contest, but what I
thought myself indispensably bound to do, by the duty which I owed my
people. I will be frank with you--I was the last to conform to the
separation, but the separation having been made, and having become
inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to
meet the friendship of the United States, as an independent power.

"The moment I see such sentiments and language as yours prevail, and a
disposition to give this country the preference, that moment I shall say,
let the circumstances of language, religion and blood have their natural
and full effect."

The kindly feelings expressed by the King, were, however, comparatively,
only the language of ceremony, for the British Ministry, and the British
people, did not regard the new republic with favor. But they could not
withhold the exhibition of reluctant respect.

It was at such a time as this, and in such circumstances, that John Quincy
Adams surveyed, from a new position, the colossal structure of British
power, and the workings of its combined systems of conservative
aristocracy, and progressive democracy. It was here that he imbibed new