Morning at the Office. Occupied myself in writing, making up Accounts, and reading Mons. Meisel. Took a short walk and by accident met Mr. Degrand with whom I had some conversation. He recommended to me some shares in the Suffolk Insurance Company, and I from a feeling of impatience at the difficulty of investment took them at the great advance of fifteen percent.1 I felt the imprudence of the Step but not until it was too late to retract. It is imprudent not only as to the price paid, but as to my means to pay it, for it anticipates all my means for six months. But the advantage of this course on the other hand is that it prevents waste, it saves me from wild speculation, and it is a chance of Investment in the older Companies which will occur more rarely hereafter as the probability increases either of the payment of any of our claims on Europe, or of the prospect of a general war.2 So that even the excess I may pay over the real value of the Shares, is not equal to the advantage I derive from investing well in small sums—Always a difficult operation. The management of money is a difficult and yet a fascinating business. It requires a coolness of head which belongs to few, and a closeness of calculation that sees beforehand as well as behind. This is not my strong forte, for I am frequently sensible of the danger in which I should be placed if I 357was tried, and by such a hazardous step as this, I am made sensible that sometimes one may be too hasty.

After dinner I went to the Athenaeum to consult Winthrop’s Journal upon a particular point in relation to my review. And afterwards spent the evening until seven o’clock reading the English Newspapers, after which I attended the Meeting of the Debating Society. It was the largest assemblage I have ever seen and was upon the question of expediency of the Dissolution of the Society. The question was well discussed and decided in the negative. I returned home and read two numbers of the Tatler.