As I had been going for so long a time I concluded it would be better to remain quietly at home today and turn my attention to winding up the principal things I was occupied about. In consequence of this I did little more than copy diligently morning and afternoon. A business for which I have no conveniences here and which affects my breast a good deal. I have got engaged in copying out the principal Letters in the Correspondence between my Grandparents and my principal difficulty has consisted in the difficulty of limiting my selection. They are all so good it is very hard not to copy all, yet this is more than I can or ought to do.

Hutchinson is all this while falling into the background. Nothing else of particular interest. I omitted to mention that my father started 159yesterday on a little trip to the mountains of New Hampshire, in company with Mr. and Mrs. I. P. Davis. This is in consequence of the urgency of the family who are concerned at the languid state in which he has been for some time past.1 In the evening, quiet at home. Gov. Knight2 and another man called. Nobody recollected him in time.

Cold morning. The Easterly winds have prevailed of late very much although the drought has become exceedingly severe. I went to town and was occupied at my house and in a variety of little ways all my time. I have now finished with workmen and am waiting for the moment to call my people i.e. servants together, which I have arranged for Monday next.

Saw Mr. Brooks who has returned from New York. His Account is exceedingly doubtful. The chance for life and death seems to me to be about equal, and nothing but the decision of the divine being can be expected for him now. Henry has some advantages in a good constitution unimpaired by excesses.

I dined at Mr. Frothingham’s and settled with his wife about the house. The Cook whom she has had for a couple of months comes to us, and leaves her just at present without. I regret but do not know how to avoid this. Went up to my House for the purpose of doing something, but a good dinner had destroyed my power of mental exertion. Remained there until six when I started upon my return. Quiet evening at home.

The morning was cloudy with slight rain. I remained quietly at home, and my time was very quietly engrossed by my occupation although it is of such a nature as to leave me but little to record. I copied several letters coming down to the two famous ones which have been made into one and with an altered date have figured away as a prophecy of the 5th of July 1776.1 They are very remarkable Letters but not much more so than the whole series of which they make a part.

It is pretty clear to me that during my stay here I can do very little more in the way of copying these very valuable papers, and as I feel unwilling to leave them to take their chance again in old trunks and damp rooms, I have concluded to draw up Indexes and get them bound up in Volumes. In this way their chance for entire preservation will be better and I can extract from them at my leisure.2 The remainder of my day was taken up in the work of Indexing.

Evening at home. Read a considerable part of Dumont’s Recollections of Mirabeau.3 My Wife was not well all day.