Morning cloudy, damp and cold. I went to town—My time there being almost entirely taken up in settling Accounts, and making up my books. Having received from Henshaw & Co. the amount of their Note and Interest,1 I proceeded to Mr. Phineas Foster’s and there paid over to him the sum due to the Minor Children of T. B. Adams Esq. from the Legacy to their Father, under the will of John Adams. This completes the amount of that legacy, and so far as it goes relieves my father’s property from a charge of Interest of nearly two hundred dollars a year.2 This business consumed all the morning.

In the afternoon, read a part of Seneca’s first book upon benefits but on the whole did not effect so much as I ought to have done. How often does this remark escape me! but we are not masters of ourselves.

In the evening, Conversation with my father, principally political. He explained to me a great deal of the history of last winter—The plans of the various parties and his own difficult position between them. Perhaps considered historically this may be of some value to me. It certainly is worthy of deep remembrance.