Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 1
1825-01-27
Morning at home, walk, visit my Uncle Johnson, John, return, dinner party at home, Mr. Bell of N. Hampshire,1 rules of proceeding, evening at home.
Biog. Dir. Cong.
).
1825-01-28
Morning at home, walk, Capitol, evening, family to Morris’,1 myself at home, visit from Mr. Ironside, politics.
Captain Charles Morris, of Connecticut, one of the Board of Commissioners for the Navy (Force, National Calendar, 1824, p. 136).
1825-01-29
Morning at home, incessant political discussions, Mr. Clay, Mr. Kremer,1 evening, Theatre, Mr. Keene, Devil’s Bridge, Count Belino.2
Anticipating that JQA if elected President would appoint Henry Clay his Secretary of State, Jackson’s managers had already begun to whisper of “corruption and bargain.” They prompted Columbian Observer of Philadelphia, and other newspapers quickly picked it up. See Bemis, JQA
, 2:57;
Biog. Dir. Cong.
Arthur Keene, the Irish singer, played the role of Count Belino in The Devil’s Bridge, an opera written by Charles Edward Horn and John Braham and revised by Henry Rowley Bishop (Ireland, Records of the N.Y. Stage, 1:335; Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Eric Blom, 5th ed., London, 1954, 1:723).
1825-01-30
Morning, walk, Capitol, too late for Church, Painting of Washington, at home, small dinner party, Mr. Webster, Mr. Cook and others.
1825-01-31
Morning at home, political excitement, Mr. Clay,1 evening, Theatre, the Gamester, Cooper, Mrs. Barnes,2 full house, rival candidates.
Clay on 31 Jan. 1825 issued “A Card,” denying Kremer’s accusation of a corrupt bargain and denouncing its author as “a base and infamous calumniator.” A copy of this document, in Clay’s own handwriting, is in the Adams Papers. A threatened duel was avoided because Kremer showed no inclination to fight, and Clay considered his opponent “too simple-minded and eccentric to summon to the field of personal honor” (Bemis, JQA
, 2:57).
Mrs. Barnes and Cooper were appearing in Edward Moore’s tragedy, The Gamester (The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, ed. Phyllis Hartnoll, London, 1951).