Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 2
1828-08-14
Returned to town, bringing Abby to Winter Hill to spend the day with Mrs. Everett. Morning at the Office, reading Saunders. The news from Louisiana is not very favourable in the latter end. In the afternoon I read the commencement of a new work upon the United States by Mr. Pitkins professing to contain an account of our civil history.1 It was interesting and contained some new views having a direct bearing upon a question which I had some time agitated in my own mind. Went to Quincy an hour earlier than usual but occupied myself in 268nothing particular. Evening, conversation with father and George upon miscellaneous subjects.
JQA’s two copies of Timothy Pitkin’s A Political and Civil History of the United States of America, from the Year 1763 to the Close of the Administration of President Washington . . . , 2 vols., New Haven, 1828, are in the Stone Library.
1828-08-15
Not having any thing in particular to call me to Boston, I decided upon remaining at Quincy through the day. My time was passed in reading—a pamphlet of Governor Bernard upon the State of the Colonies, written previous to the Revolution,1 and also, some articles in the Biographia Brittanica. In the afternoon, my father and some of our family went to visit an encampment of a Boston Company now here in active service. I read the Voyage of Captain Popanilla by the author of Vivian Grey.2 Not so good but still pleasant. In the evening, the Officers of the Rangers came by invitation to drink tea, and they brought their band. Chapman of my Class is their 1st Lieutt. I was on the whole, glad to have it over.
Presumably Francis Bernard’s Select Letters on the Trade and Government of America, London, 1774.
Benjamin Disraeli, The Voyage of Captain Popanilla, London, 1828.
1828-08-16
Arose later than usual and had no opportunity to finish a letter to my Mother which I had commenced,1 until I reached Boston. This occupied me until quite late and I did nothing during the morning except visiting Mr. Stuart’s Gallery of Portraits which gratified me much for an hour.2 His likeness of my father is most remarkably fine, besides many others too numerous to mention. At one o’clock I rode to Medford, found Abby and the family much as usual. In the afternoon she went with me to see Mrs. Edward Brooks at Watertown. Found them as they usually may be seen, pretty much alone. Mr. and Mrs. Wells came in shortly after, her sister.3 She has engrossed the whole of her house for her own relations which is hardly a good plan. It makes her husband separate from all his old connections. We returned after tea in a cool evening.
Missing.
The distinguished painter, Gilbert Stuart, had died in Boston on 9 July 1828, leaving very little but unfinished canvases to support his widow and his four surviving daughters. For their benefit the Boston Athenaeum held an exhibit of his work, which brought together 211 of his portraits (
DAB
).
Frances Boott, like Mrs. Edward Brooks a daughter of Kirk Boott, had married William Wells Jr. in 1808 (Columbian Centinel, 7 May 1808).