I went to the Office. I continue circulating my pamphlets as much as I can and the extraordinary distress which pervades the Community has had a tendency to bring it more into notice. Mr. C. P. Curtis sent me yesterday a polite request for a copy to preserve and another to send to an eminent legal friend in Virginia. This is a compliment from a quarter where I little expected it. I sent him an equally polite answer with six copies which he may perhaps think more than he bargained for. Occupied in Accounts all the morning.

Went home early for the purpose of dining, and accompanied by Mr. Walsh I again drove to Quincy. Being anxious about the underpinning and the sending of my plan. Found them actively at work making preparations. I was myself engaged very busily in the Setting of the trees received from Mr. Brooks. I placed them as favorably as I could but it is difficult merely from conjecture to know how they will be adapted to the views from the House. The work was so long that I did not get through until sundown, and we did not get away until later 227so that it was nearly nine when I reached home. Mr. Walsh took tea with me and my wife did not herself come in from Medford until after it. Finished the first volume of Notre Dame.

Morning at the Office. Accounts and various commissions which consumed a good part of the morning. I go about paying the debts which I incur as fast as possible. The times are becoming very bad. The accounts from New York are such as create great alarm in the mercantile community here. Confidence appears to be entirely destroyed and every kind of property is falling in price. The bubble has at last burst, with the greater violence because it has been kept so long from doing so.

Home, where I read Homer. Afternoon, I had to myself. Read Plutarch and Agathon. The first I have been making rather slow progress with but am now nearly through this Essay. It contains much wisdom clumsily and immethodically put together.

Evening at a ball given by Mrs. S. C. Gray.1 Her first. It was rather pleasant than otherwise, although they are all vexations, to me who feel oldish and out of the circle of young ones. I found myself however much flattered by the notice of my Pamphlet, having several applications, and complimentary speeches. This is gratifying to me who need only reputation. Home late.

The weather continues cold and clear with clouds flying during the day, that portend snow. I went to the Office. Occupied in accounts. Conversation with Mr. Everett and Mr. Walsh. I also dispatched another great batch of my Pamphlet. The number of my copies has been largely reduced within a few days, so that I think I have remaining not more than fifty. I am on the whole compensated for my publication in a pamphlet form. Yet not a single Newspaper of Whig politics has noticed it and as great an effort has been made to crush it, as was successfully made in the case of my former Appeal.1

Sat with Mr. Brooks sometime. Governor Everett has been trying a stroke of popularity in a veto upon the extra compensation voted by 228the Legislature to themselves, which has been carried by a vote of two thirds against him. I nevertheless at this moment think he has secured his election by it in the Autumn.

Received a letter from Mr. Johnson.2 He has at last received his money, and apologizes for his forgetfulness. He complains as usual and threatens a journey to England as soon as the weather opens more favourably. My mind is prodigiously relieved by this intelligence. He has not probably yet realized the money but he at least acquits me of all neglect. The next question is how he will bear my last letters which are rather dissatisfied. This it is to be hipped.3

Home where I read Homer. Afternoon to Quincy with a new horse sent to me to try. Found the masons playing all in the wrong. They have under the carpenter’s orders, been changing the places of all the stones in a manner not a little vexatious. I found myself somewhat fretted at this. My time was so short that I could do little more than scold and come home. Found Mr. Brooks sitting with my wife, and he remained until nine. After which, writing.