Morning to town with Mr. Brooks. Weather fine but cool. At the Office nearly all the morning engaged in my common occupations. Read a little of Hutchinson and made a settlement of some of the demands upon New’s Estate. Mr. Beals, my Tenant of Mr. Hollis’ house called to discuss the question of moving or reducing rent. I had heard a bad character of him and made no effort to compromise.

An Irish Woman came for advice, sent as she said by Mr. Consul Manners.1 Why this gentleman should think proper to send the woman to me I cannot comprehend. She had no cause of complaint that I could discover against her lawyer Mr. A. Moore, with whose concerns I had no inclination to interfere. So I directed her to wait and see the end of her affair. She is a poor Irish woman whose case is a hard one as she has no friends and is unlucky enough to have a dishonest lawyer.

Returned to Medford with Mr. B. and found Mr. Frothingham there after an absence of several days. I wasted my Afternoon, excepting in a walk with Mr. Brooks to a part of Woburn to look at a great Elm Tree which is there. It is a noble sight. We measured it at two feet from the ground and found it twenty feet three inches in girth, which is with us prodigious.2 Returned to tea and passed the Evening at Mrs. Hall’s, tolerably dull.