Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4

Tuesday. 26th.

Thursday. 28th.

Wednesday. 27th. CFA

1831-04-27

Wednesday. 27th. CFA
Wednesday. 27th.

Morning fine with the usually cold Wind from the North and East. As my room was in a State of such confusion, I was obliged instead of continuing my pursuit of my study of Demosthenes, to read Franklins Journal downstairs. This is a very interesting work, and contains much information upon the point of the Sea existing North of the Continent of America.

At the Office, conversation with Mr. Peabody as usual in which we discussed the letter of Mr. Ingham and its bearing upon the present State of Affairs.1 This is a most unaccountable business. We shall see what comes. I finished La Politique Naturelle. A piece that contains a good deal of truth put up in a frothy, declamatory way. The matter of Government is not Child’s play, although the experience of the last fifty years would lead us to suppose that some people thought so.

Returned home and in the afternoon, went to the Athenaeum where I finished Mr. Gallatin’s Article and one in the next Number of the same Review.2 Both good, but a man could hardly write otherwise than well, knowing the facts on that subject.

Took tea at Mrs. Frothingham’s, and went to receive the payment of my brother’s share at the Republican Institution which was however postponed. Returned home and read Franklin, with the Spectator.

1.

Secretary Ingham’s letter to the President, along with attendant facts and speculation, appeared in the Columbian Centinel, 27 April, p. 1–2.

2.

“Bank of the United States,” American Quarterly Review, 9:246–282 (March 1831). The two articles were afterwards expanded and published as Considerations on the Currency and Banking System of the United States, Phila., 1831; in this form it appears in Gallatin, Writings, 3:231–364.