Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 2
1829-02-26
The morning opened with a heavy rain, which acting upon the snow already on the ground, laid our streets some inches under water. The walking was consequently horrible. I went to the Office in the morning but was satisfied to remain at home during the rest of the day. Wrote an answer to my father’s last. It was short and a little dull. I did little else during the morning. Afternoon and Evening passed in reading Mirabeau’s Private History of the Court of Berlin.1 Not very amusing, although good as the models for a spy, into the politics of a Court.
The Stone Library contains two copies of Histoire secrète de la cour de Berlin, by Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, 2 vols., London and Paris, 1789.
1829-02-27
Morning cold and unpleasant. At the Office and in Court. This Controversy has at last excited me very much and I could not avoid writing a short Article for the Patriot, notwithstanding the express injunction of my father to keep quiet.1 The course of the federal Newspapers is too unfair. Nothing going on in Court, so that I continued the examination of my Papers and destroyed a number. Afternoon, read the Trial of Mr. Child for a Libel on Mr. Keyes,2 and a Chapter of Adam Smith. Evening, Pope, Dunciad and his Numbers of the Guardian.
CFA’s article did appear in the Boston Patriot & Mercantile Advertiser on 28 February. Commenting on the JQA-William Plumer correspondence, which the paper was printing (see entry for 25 Feb., and note, above), CFA wrote: “It is not our intention, after the manner of some of our cotemporaries, to ask the public, first to take our word, and read afterwards; nor with others, to show only those parts which have not been published before, out of connextion. . . . All we ask, is the attention of our readers to the whole pamphlet taken together.” See GWA to JQA, 28 Feb. 1829, and JQA to CFA, 8 Mar. 1829, Adams Papers.
CFA’s copy of the Trial of the Case of the Commonwealth versus David Lee Child, for Publishing in the Massachusetts Journal a Libel on the Honorable John Keyes, Boston, 1829, is in the Boston Athenaeum.
1829-02-28
Morning at the Office. Wrote a letter to my Mother and a short Note to my father besides sending an order to my Tailors in Philadelphia which I note for the sake of remembering the fact.1 This occupied the time until dinner after which I read Adam Smith. Evening at the Moot Court. Heard a short argument and passed the remainder of the evening at home.
The letters to JQA and to the tailors are missing.