On November 7, 2008, Ambassador Victor Ashe spoke at an international conference on Poles in North America, held at the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Museum of Polish Emigration in Lazienki Royal Park. Ambassador Ashe joined other dignitaries, including representative of the chancellery Professor Andrzej Stelmachowski, Ambassador David Preston of Canada, and Ambassador Raphael Steger of Mexico. He spoke of the long history of Poles in America, which reaches back 400 years to the settlement of two Polish craftsmen in Jamestown and continues to this day with a flourishing Polish-American community in the United States. The Ambassador noted the heroic contributions of Poles and Polish Americans from the Revolutionary War through World War II and the Korean Conflict to today’s war on terror, continuing the Polish nation’s great tradition of defending freedom throughout the world.