Morning to town but rather late owing to some conversation with my father which detained me. He is now pursuing the study of the History of this Country very assiduously, and he asks me to assist him in the mechanical part of preparing the manuscripts. I am perfectly willing to do so, but cannot help thinking that my time is of more value to me than the product which this will bring.

Occupied in town, first in writing my Journal, next in copying for my father sundry letters and papers connected with his own affairs and those of the Executors of Mr. Boylston. I felt so unwell that I thought I would take no dinner but simply subsist upon six oysters as a luncheon. My bowels not being perfectly in order. In the afternoon I went to the House and superintended the moving of my own books from the Office, which are more in number than I had expected and which will not at any rate I am fearful, go into the space I have devoted for them. But I was so exceedingly unwell during the whole afternoon that I could do nothing more than just to lay them in confusion upon the floor, and trust to a better opportunity. Besides my Carpenter has been exceedingly slow about the matter and has not yet made the last Bookcase, which provokes me exceedingly. I returned to the Office and from thence rode to Quincy after finding that there were again no letters from any of the family. I felt so unwell all day that I began to be apprehensive of a fit of sickness so I kept fast.