The United States Government paid little attention to its workings so long as they were confined to purely European relations, but when, in 1822, at the congress of these powers at Verona, which had been assembled to consider the question of aiding the Spanish Government to suppress the insurrection against its authority in Spain, the subject of aiding that Government to re-establish its authority over Spain's revolting colonies in North and South America was discussed, serious apprehensions were roused in both Great Britain and the United States. It was stated, and generally believed, in the United States, that the plan was the re-establishment of the Spanish power over all of Spain's American possessions, except Mexico and California, and the cession of Mexico to France, and of California to Russia, in consideration of the military aid to be rendered to Spain by these two great powers in the work of restoration. [Sidenote: Mr. Adams' declaration to Baron Tuyl.] To the United States the supposed intentions of Russia in respect to the Pacific coast appeared the more immediate danger, and the United States Government addressed its diplomacy to this question first. On July 17th, 1823, the Secretary of State, Mr. John Quincy Adams, declared to the Russian Minister at Washington, 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 {125} continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments." [Sidenote: Mr. Canning's proposal to Mr. Rush.] The following month, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. George Canning, proposed to the Minister of the United States at the Court of St. James, Mr. Richard Rush, a joint declaration by the British Government and the Government of the United States to Europe, that the two Governments would not remain indifferent to an intervention by the Holy Alliance Powers to restore the Spanish authority over Spain's revolting American colonies. Both commercial interests and political principles moved the British Government to make this proposition. [Sidenote: Mr. Canning's declaration to Prince Polignac.]