When on 16 August 1823 the British Foreign Secretary, with unwonted affability, suggested to the American Minister in London that the two countries might go hand in hand in disapproving French interference with the independence of Spanish America, George Canning was swallowing his distaste for republican principles in deference to the logic of British interests as interpreted by the Liberal Tories. The gesture was motivated both by the problem set by the friends of legitimacy and by a consciousness that British industrialism needed American markets and raw materials. In Washington, President Monroe's first reaction to this proposal was to follow Jefferson and Madison in encouraging a rapprochement with Britain which would benefit American interests in the Atlantic; but the decisive voice was that of the secretary of state. John Quincy Adams ignored Canning's offer and drafted that independent declaration warning the European Powers off the Western Hemisphere which the world came to know as the Monroe Doctrine.

And the Message went on to explain: