Adams Papers Digital Edition

Diary of John Quincy Adams, volume 1

Tuesday June the 12th 1781.

Thursday June the 14th 1781.
Wednesday June the 13th 1781. JQA

1781-06-13

 Wednesday June the 13th 1781. Adams, John Quincy
Wednesday June the 13th 1781.

This morning Mr. Cerisier1 came here and said that he had read in the Brussels Gazette, that there had been a second action between Lord Cornwallis and General Green, that General Green had been repulsed with the loss of 400 men, but he says he don't know by which way the news comes.2

At eleven o'clock I went to take a walk with Mr. Bordly and brother Charles; we met Mr. Le Roi on the Way. He ask'd us to go to Sloot Sloten with him this afternoon, we told him we would.

Mr. Cerisier din'd with us, after dinner brother Charles and I went to Sloot, which is a small village, about 7 Miles from Amsterdam, we found Mr. Hartsinck, Mr. Le Roi, Young Mr. Chabanel, Mr. Scravensvert, and Mr. Menoir there; we went into water, in the Haerlem meer. We got home at about half past 8 o'clock.

From Guthrie's Grammar. (continued from yesterday) Chap 4th §: 4th.3

1.

Antoine Marie Cerisier, a French publicist and historical writer living in Amsterdam, who earlier in 1781 established the periodical paper, Le politique hollandais, the Dutch Politician, which actively promoted the American cause and was widely read (JA, Diary and Autobiography , 2:454).

 2.

There was no “second battle” after Guilford Court House between Greene and Cornwallis. Greene fought Rawdon unsuccessfully at Hobkirk's Hill on 25 April. Technically Rawdon was under Cornwallis' command. American casualties numbered 134 (Willard M. Wallace, Appeal to Arms, N.Y., 1951, p. 240–241).

 3.

Here follow, on about two and one-quarter pages in the Diary, the description of Dutch rivers and harbors, and Section 5, “vegetable and animal productions by sea and land,” from Guthrie, Geographical Grammar, p. 400–401.