The day was wet and foggy with wind from the Eastward so that I did not stir from home. Indeed while the town is making a holiday of General Jackson’s visit, it is waste of time for me to attempt to do 113any thing there. Read Horace and Neale. The latter gives an Account of the first settlement of Plymouth Colony and the admirable address by Robinson which is interesting. I ought to have read this history before I wrote upon the subject.

Engaged also upon the controversial papers between Hutchinson and the General Court. They are exceedingly well done and strong on both sides although I think the reasoning leans against the Governor. Indeed, had it not been for the consent to the authority of the Long Parliament, I should be clear. To this it can only be answered that times of civil commotion are not the best from which to draw precedents to settle great principles.

My afternoons require more easy reading, and I think I earn the privilege when my mornings are so well spent. Read the Letters of St. John the Pennsylvania Farmer, which are very pretty.1 Evening quietly at home. Mr. Beale called in and spent an hour.

It rained so very heavily nearly all day that I did not pretend to execute my intention of going to Boston. The time was passed far more profitably in my Office which is becoming quite an agreeable place to me from it’s quietness and from my having it entirely to myself. I read Horace’s Art of Poetry, which the more I go over the more I admire, Neale who becomes interesting as he progresses in the Stuart Reigns, and Tudor’s Life of James Otis.

Reading Hutchinson has given me quite the spirit of investigation into our early times, and I have already cleared my notions wonderfully by the exercise. James Otis was an uncommon man. He certainly did much to excite the popular feeling and bring forward the Revolution. Mr. Tudor has written a book which posterity will value. It was made up partly from reminiscences by my Grandfather which might have been lost if it had not been for its composition.1 Our Revolution is becoming more and more, daily, matter of history. Contemporaneous testimony is now to be found only in the books. I must study out the history fully.

Afternoon, Read more of St. John’s Letters. There is a very pretty style of sentiment running through their composition. Alas! that in the rough features of this world one can hardly recognize the resemblance. Suffering so often treads upon the heels of pleasure that one 114cannot ever feel over confident even of the happiness of the moment. If it were not so, the world would be too fascinating. Mad. de Sevigné and the Observer.