Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 5
1833-07-18
Cloudy with occasional thunder showers round about us but no rain of any consequence here. I rode to town and spent my morning in rather an idle way. Went to the Office, the Athenaeum, and dawdled an hour at the second hand Book Store where I purchased a copy of Gesner’s Horace for the sake of comparison with my copy and those of Dacier and Sanadon.1 I have little or nothing else to say in excuse for nearly four hours. Commissions however took up some time.
In the Afternoon I was engaged in copying a long Antimasonic Letter from my father to a Committee in Vermont. He rather overdoes this business. Mr. Everett has lately written a letter however, which has transferred a large portion of the Hornets to his person. He is less easy in the traces. I do not know how he will get through.2 Read an Ode 130or two of Horace. Evening with my Mother who is better. Read the Observer.
See above, entry for 1 Feb., note.
Edward Everett, in a letter of 29 June to H. W. Atwill printed in the Concord Gazette, had come out strongly against Freemasonry. National Republican newspapers were severely critical of him for thus inflicting damage on the party of which he was a leading member (Columbian Centinel, 15 July, p. 2, col. 5; 20 July, p. 2, col. 1). The plan of Everett and his brother Alexander Hill to effectuate a union of the National Republicans with the antimasonic forces through the nomination by both parties of JQA for governor, presenting a common front against the Jacksonian Democrats (A. H. Everett to JQA, 11 July 1833, Adams Papers), would presently appear.