Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3
1830-10-17
The day was very beautiful, being fine Autumn weather. I attended Divine Service both morning and afternoon and heard Mr. Frothingham deliver a Sermon in the Morning and Mr. Greenwood in the Afternoon. Neither of them remained on my mind at all. Indeed I felt rather indisposed from a dull headach during the day, probably arising from indigestion. It is the first I have had for a long time, and it indisposes me from performing any active exertion.
I did a little in the way of the Catalogue which I have commenced putting into it’s final shape. Had some Conversation with Mr. Chadwick upon the approaching election to Congress and was surprised to find how many people designed voting for Mr. Lee.1 This I consider as equivalent to an abandonment of all our principles and it has pained me not a little. It is much to be regretted that Mr. Gorham withdrew from this contest. I did very little but attempt to draw up an Article directly at variance with that of Friday, and in support of the County nomination. This I continued in the evening, after drawing up which I read a couple of papers in the Tatler.2
On the whole I was glad to retire for the pain in my head indisposed me much. A person who feels pain often gets accustomed to bear it well, but one who like me has known very little of it of late becomes impatient at the least sign of it.
Henry Lee was the nominee of the Free Trade Party for representative to Congress to succeed Benjamin Gorham, who had declined reelection (Boston Patriot, 16 Oct., p. 2, col. 1).
The absence of any statement by CFA that he sent off for publication the political article he had written may suggest that the article he wrote and sent to the Courier on the 18th was only a further revision of his earlier efforts to express his views on the Appleton-Lee contest. However, from his words in the entry for the 18th one might conclude that the article in the Courier was a different one. It should perhaps be noted that a communication signed “Medium” which appeared in the Boston Daily Advertiser on 19 Oct. (p. 2, col. 1) took essentially the position CFA had here reached.