Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1831-10-01
Morning cold but fine and clear, being a good specimen of our Autumn weather. I accomplished a little of my usual duties, previously 149to going to Boston with my father, mother and Miss Roberdeau. We reached there quite late, and I was very busy the whole of the time before dinner. This being Quarter day, I made up my Accounts for the Agency, completed the Copy of it for my Father, and settled all the other matters pertaining to the coming Quarter. Received Miss Oliver’s Rent punctually on the day for the first time since I have been Agent. Called to see Mr. Curtis at the Merchant’s Insurance Office and gave him my father’s letter to Petty Vaughan.1 Then arranged my balances at the Bank and returned home to dine with the ladies at my House. My father dined at A. H. Everett’s.2 We had a pleasant time, and I did on the whole much better than I anticipated.
After dinner, walked with Miss Roberdeau to shew her the town, and to see several Cabinet Makers, about a Commission of her’s. Returned for my Mother, and after shopping a little for her, we went down and took tea at Mrs. Frothingham’s. After which some sacred music. Returned to Quincy at seven, Mr. Kirke driving us with considerable rapidity. Talked a little with Abby, after which being fatigued read the Spectator and retired early.
The letter is missing.
The dinner, attended by JQA and some fifteen other gentlemen, “among whom were the two French Commissioners of the Government Tocqueville and de Beaumont who have been sent to this Country to visit and examine the Prisons” (JQA, Diary, 1 Oct.), has taken on a more than ephemeral interest from the fact that the substance of JQA’s table conversation with Tocqueville, who was seated next to him, on such subjects as slavery and the South, the state of religion in the United States, political conventions, and the movement westward was entered in his notebooks by Tocqueville and has been printed. In Alexis de Tocqueville, Journey to America, edited by J. P. Mayer, New Haven, 1960, the conversation with JQA is at p. 60–63.