Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 8
1839-02-14
Cloudy and wet. Time as usual. Quiet evening.
Not long at the Office today as I felt obliged to go down to the Athenaeum and make an effort to procure the volumes of the trial of Burr.1 I am so languid about this that it is eminently doubtful whether I shall make any thing at all of it. Procured the necessary volumes, and 189also one of General Wilkinson’s life2 with which I went home after looking over Wood’s Administration of John Adams3 and Jefferson’s letters about the period of the election.4 I want also the report upon John Smith5 and the Ana in Jefferson6 which were not in.
Antigone after which the report of the trial. It seems to be a contest of technicalities and an extremely vehement one. Quietly at home. I continued upon currency and begin to see my path.
At the Athenaeum were Thomas Carpenter, Report of the Trial of Aaron Burr for Treason, 3 vols., Washington, 1807–1808; David Robertson, Reports of the Trials of Burr for Treason and Misdemeanor, 2 vols., Phila., 1808; Trial of Burr including the Arguments during the Examination and Trial if Gen. Wilkinson, 3 vols., Washington, 1807.
Gen. James Wilkinson, Memoirs of my own Times, 4 vols., Phila., 1816.
John Wood, The History of the Administration of John Adams, N.Y., 1802.
Memoir, Correspondence and Miscellanies of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, 4 vols., Boston, 1829. The letters of 1789–1803 are in vol. 3.
Testimony in Connection with the Investigation of Senator John Smith [of Ohio] ... Queries Addressed by the Committee, Dec. 9, 1807, to Mr. Smith, ordered printed Dec. 31, 1807, Washington, 1808.
Vol. 4 of the edition of Jefferson, above, contained the Ana.
1839-02-15
Cloudy and wet. Time as usual. Evening to see Edmund Quincy.
I devoted much of my time to the reading of the trial of Burr. Never was a case so embarrassed with preliminary motions, challenges of jurymen, questions of bail &ca. I have as yet no idea of the merits. A struggle of wit among acute lawyers seems the only characteristic of the work.
Antigone, and went in the evening to see Edmund Quincy who is recovering. Mrs. Quincy was not there but he was, and we sat an hour. Letter from my Mother today covering some bad intelligence.1 The public news is also of great disaster from a furious storm in the British Channel.
LCA, in her letter to CFA (11 Feb., Adams Papers), reported “a disgusting tale” involving Thomas Baker Johnson Frye, son of the Nathaniel Fryes: “You and Abby will start with astonishment and disgust to learn that he has been married some time, and is the Father of a Son by Miss Catherine Johnson, the immaculate Saint of thirty three, who was a visitor at Mrs. Frye’s when you were with us last April
1839-02-16
Weather dull and foggy. Much the usual distribution. Evening at home.
190At the Office this morning where I was occupied by Deacon W. Spear who came from Quincy with the usual amount of applications. This day of the week is commonly frittered away in things of this kind. Home to read Antigone. Mr. Brooks and P. C. Jr. dined here today by way of remembering the birth day of my youngest boy Henry who is a year old. There is no intelligence of any kind, and on the whole we are growing very dull. Evening passed very quietly at home. Finished the first draught upon the currency not at all satisfactory.