Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3
1830-06-02
The morning was lovely, giving us the first specimen we have had of Summer Weather for some time past. I thought I should go to Quincy and went to order a vehicle when I found a letter at the Post Office from Philadelphia informing me of their probable stay at that place for some time, which of course disarranged me for the day.1 I had anticipated the pleasure of meeting them so strongly that it certainly was a disappointment.
At the Office where I passed my time in translating Aeschines and reading Mitford. News came this morning of the loss of the Ship Boston by fire, upon which a considerable sum was insured at the New 252England Office, so that the expected Dividend will not be so large, and my Accounts are somewhat varied.2 My friend Richardson called, but staid only a few moments. Returned home to dine and passed the afternoon in reading Prior. Finished the work with which I have been on the whole much pleased. It is a better estimate of Burke’s character than any I ever read, and gives me many new ideas about him. I also read an Article upon him in the Edinburgh Review and another in the Quarterly.3 The first by a political enemy, the last by a friend. Both not quite the truth, but the latter much nearer to it than the former. Evening, Eustace to my Wife. A strange and incomprehensible mixture this man. A Catholic Priest, a John Bull, and a warm republican. Three most incongruous characters.
JQA to CFA, 29 May (Adams Papers). LCA, Mrs. JA2, daughter, and nurse (Mrs. Nowland), who had left Washington in the family carriage on the 27th, joined JQA in Philadelphia according to plan. However, since the journey could not be resumed before the 31st, the arrival of all in Quincy was necessarily delayed.
The Boston, Capt. Mackay, bound for Liverpool from Charleston with a cargo principally of cotton, was struck by lightning and set afire on 25 May. Of her $20,000 insurance, half was carried by the Columbian office, half by the New England office (Boston Patriot, 2 June, p. 2, col. 1).
A review of The Epistolary Correspondence of ... Edmund Burke and Dr. French Lawrence, London, 1827, in the Edinburgh Review, 46:269–303 (Oct. 1827); a review of Prior’s, Memoir of ... Burke, in the Quarterly Review, 34:457–487 (Sept. 1826).