Browsing: Diary of John Adams, Volume 2

1. This is JA's running record of his expenses for his service in the third session of the Continental Congress. A fair copy, containing rather negligible differences in phrasing, was prepared and submitted by JA to the legislature in order to obtain reimbursement; this is in M-Ar: vol. 210 and is supported by receipted bills for many of the charges listed. The more interesting of these bills (filed in the same volume) are printed below under the dates they were receipted.

2. They arrived in Philadelphia on 12 Sept.; Congress, which had been adjourning from day to day for want of a quorum, met for business on 13 Sept. (Ward, Diary, in Burnett, ed., Letters of Members , 1:192–193).

3. As shown in Mrs. Yard's receipted bill (printed below under 9 Dec), this amount is in Pennsylvania currency, which JA should have converted to New England lawful money when entering it here. The fair copy of JA's expense account in M-Ar has the correct amount £19 2s. 9d. inserted by another hand at this point. See the following note.

4. The fair copy enters the cost of these last two items as £20 and reckons the total amount expended as £127 7s. 10d. It then subjoins two “credit” items —the £5 6s. 4d. borrowed of Samuel Adams, and “By Cash reed, of the Treasurer,” £130—making a total credit of £135 6s. 4d., so that JA found the “Ballance due to the Colony” to be £7 18s. 6d. (The Treasurer's warrant is recorded in the Minutes of the Council, 22 Aug., in M-Ar: vol. 86.) This “Ballance” was deducted when JA's still outstanding account for April-Aug. 1775 (q.v. above) was at length settled, 16– 18 Sept. 1776, together with a further deduction of £4 15s. 9d., owing to an “Error of Mrs. Yard's Balance Deer. 1775” (see note 3 above), so that he was finally reimbursed in the amount of £121 13s. 9d. (M-Ar: vol. 210, p. 290, 280–280 A; Mass., House Jour. , 1775–1776, 3d sess., p. 175, 196, 281; same, 1776–1777, p. 104, 108).