Morning clear though cold, but it afterwards clouded and rained in the afternoon. I went to the Office and was occupied much of my time with Mr. Ayer and Mr. Whiting, my Carpenter and Mason who came in for plans and money. I am becoming a little startled at the difficulties of keeping in funds for my undertaking and considering the expediency of stopping the work. Yet I do not much wish it.

The commercial tornado increases in violence from day to day. The accounts today from New York are worse and worse, they show the last stage of panic. A run on the Banks, the failure of one and the fear of the consequences of refusing the bills inducing the others to take them with almost a certainty of loss. The consternation here is also very great. The factories have large amounts of suspended paper, which they cannot convert. Drafts for their cotton are now coming due and their workmen are constantly requiring money. Of course the only alternative is to stop which most of them are doing. But the distress as well to operatives as to stockholders must necessarily be very consider-240able. And the prospect is undoubtedly alarming even to the sternest nerves.

I felt my own spirits somewhat affected today although to me individually there is very little of this kind of trouble comparatively speaking. But there is much sympathy in all these cases and one thing is certain that my next year’s income is probably fifteen hundred dollars less, which is bad for a person just laying out money. Mr. Brooks too appears at last to be much alarmed. Gorham Brooks is here from Baltimore, I fancy in some difficulty, but this is mere conjecture and unfortified by any evidence.

Home. Read Homer. Afternoon, Plutarch and Agathon. Evening, Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham came in and passed a couple of hours very pleasantly. Then I read Moore’s Life of Byron.