Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 2
1828-08-21
After passing an hour with Abby, I returned to Boston. Morning at 271the Office reading a case or two in Saunders which is very loose reading and wasting much of my time in reading Newspapers. The result of the Kentucky election is still extremely doubtful and not less interesting.1 My own prospect depending somewhat upon it, I feel a little though not very anxious about it. Afternoon, Annual Register for 18262 and a little of Mr. Pitkin. Returned to Quincy. My father had been on a fishing expedition from which he returned somewhat heated. Passed the evening in conversation.
Early returns from Kentucky indicated that General Thomas Metcalfe, the Administration candidate for governor, was slightly leading his Jacksonian opponent (Daily National Intelligencer, 23 Aug. 1828).
The Annual Register; or, A View of the History, Politicks and Literature of the Year was published in London from 1758 to 1851.
1828-08-22
I did not go to town this morning but remained and in the morning took a bath in salt water with my father, John and Thomas. I then amused myself with reading the history of Navigation as prefixed to an old collection of voyages, and afterward some passages from a volume of Voltaire. Desiring to finish all conversation with my father, I resumed the subject. I will not detail the conversation here as perhaps it may lead to nothing, but it is very certain that my feelings were cruelly hurt, and in a manner which no subsequent kindness can remedy.1 My afternoon was spent in great pain of mind and in reflection upon what it was proper to do under the state of circumstances. I wrote a letter to my Mother to divert my thoughts,2 which succeeded but poorly, and in the evening with the family.
Unfortunately JQA’s diary makes no mention of this conversation, to which CFA’s thoughts so often reverted during the next six months, but from several subsequent letters it is possible to reconstruct what probably occurred. When CFA importunately demanded an increase in his allowance, so that he might be married soon, his father, about to retire from public service with scanty resources to support his expensive family, retorted hotly with a warning against extravagance and a reminder that CFA was “a beggar, living on charity.” CFA replied with harsh words, and the interview ended in mutual recriminations. See CFA to LCA, 3 Jan. 1829; JQA to CFA, 13 Jan. 1829; and CFA to JQA, 21 Jan. 1829, LbC; all in Adams Papers.
Missing.
1828-08-23
My idea of marrying this season is reluctantly abandoned and I shall be compelled to pass another winter as I did the last. My mind is gloomy enough. I rode to town, and passed the morning at the Office, reading Saunders. Received a letter from my Mother dated on my birth day and written in her kindest and most affectionate tones. 272It touched me at a moment when I was sore. It gave me a balm when all else was irritation. Her kindness is that of affection, it calls forth one’s best feelings in return. Dined at Mr. Gardiner Greene’s.1 Company large, consisting more particularly of the richest men in Boston. Lt. Govr. Winthrop, Genl. Morton, Mr. Quincy, Mr. Hubbard,2 Appleton, Joy, Parker, Ritchie,3 J. Russell,4 Mr. Brooks and others. Edmund Quincy and I did very well. After a handsome dinner, I rode to Medford in a beautiful evening.
Gardiner Greene, who owned much valuable Boston real estate, had a house on Tremont Street, behind which he developed “a hillside garden that was one of the wonders of the first third of the nineteenth century” (Whitehill, Boston: A Topographical History
, p. 106–107).
Boston Directory, 1829–1830).
William Ritchie, a merchant, who lived at 3 Cambridge Street (same).
Joseph Russell, who lived at 5 Park Street (same).