Morning clear and pleasant. I went to the Office as usual and was occupied first in reading a letter from my Mother, giving an Account of her perils as far as Hartford. She has had a pretty bad time of it since the snow fell. My father however had arrived safe.1 I occupied part of my morning reading the President’s Message which has just arrived. It is a strange mixture of singular doctrines not before heard in the Executive Chair of this Union.2 Part of my morning passed in preparing a draught of my opening of the debate for the Committee of the Society that meets this evening. And a part I felt obliged to 380occupy in walking. My health ought not to be trifled with, for that is the foundation upon which every man should build.

Afternoon, finished the second book of Cicero de Oratore, and was pleased with all the latter part of it in which he describes the various duties of an Orator, clearly and in brief. A peculiarity of this book is, that in it he makes his Speaker contradict every thing he said in the other. In the evening, I went out to the Debating Society as usual, where we had a pretty good sized Company. The old discussion was continued and finished. I said only a very few words. Wrote a little of my Catalogue, and read two numbers of the Tatler.