Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 2
1827-04-16
I was later than usual at my Record owing to some arrangements 121about taking a bath, and was compelled to omit my Geography, but the remainder of the day was busily employed. Wrote a letter to Abby, and prepared for the reading of Tacitus.
My undertakings for this Summer are to be Grotius and Puffendorf in the Law of Nations,1 Coke Littleton in Law,2 and Tacitus in the Classics. No very small work. God prosper the undertaking.
Three sets of Hugo Grotius’ Droit de la guerre et de la paix, published in La Haye in 1703 and in Basle in 1746 and in 1768, are among JQA’s books in the Stone Library, which also contains two copies of Samuel Pufendorf’s Le droit de la nature et des gens, published in Amsterdam in 1734 and in 1795, once belonging to JQA. Among JA’s books in the Boston Public Library is a copy of Grotius’ The Rights of War and Peace, London, 1738, as well as a London edition, 1729, of Pufendorf’s Of the Law of Nature and Nations (
Catalogue of JA’s Library
, p. 111, 204).
Edward Coke’s famous Institutes of the Lawes of England, London, 1628–1644, in four parts, which consisted of Sir Thomas Littleton’s treatise on tenures with an elaborate commentary by Coke, long the standard authority on real property in England and America. For JA’s set of Coke’s Institutes, published in London, 1628–1681, 4 vols., see
Catalogue of JA’s Library
, p. 54.