I thought that as no especial business called me to town this morning, I would not go, and employ the time instead in the work I have 54undertaken, to methodize the Papers of my Grandfather. This is a prodigious work, it is one that I foresee must be performed by me, or it will never be done. There is so much that is useless and cumbersome mixed among many very valuable historical materials, that my Father shrinks at the task of assorting. I looked over a vast multitude of Papers relating to the affairs of the Revolution. Also some of the correspondence relating to the Army of 1799. An eventful period in the life of my Grandfather.1 I made some progress though not a great deal.

Afternoon, occupied in reading Cicero, but I find that out of my own house and comfortable accommodations it is not quite so easy to make progress. I was obliged to review what I had already done of the Oration for Balbus. T. B. Adams Jr. spent the day here. Evening, quietly at home with the family, reading to them a part of Moore’s Life of Byron. After it, the Spectator.