Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 8
1839-08-28
Cold change. At home all day. Usual occupation. Evening at the Mansion.
The temperature fell very fast today from the point which it has maintained for a week or ten days past. I remained at home superintending the work doing upon my road and working a little myself until my time came that I devote to copying. Read Storch’s Note upon Law’s system which begins to give me some idea of it, but I must go more deeply into it.1 I think I can do something out of it.
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Dined at my father’s after which read Tacitus History b. 1. S. 10–30. This appears to me much the most elaborate work. Tea and evening at the Mansion. Nothing new.
John Law, a Scotsman, occupied in France, 1715–1720, a succession of fiscal offices leading to that of controller-general of state finances. Through them he applied the tenets of his “System,” with extraordinary success at the outset but ending in the unmitigated disaster called the “Mississippi bubble.” The “System” provided for a vast increase in credit through the issuance by a state bank of paper currency redeemable at a fixed value and acceptable in payment of taxes. In the resulting expansion of industry and trade, a state company was created and given a monopoly in the handling of trade and banking in and with France’s foreign possessions. When the state bank, the mint, and the company were brought under unified control, shares were offered to an eager public, were wildly oversubscribed, and brought sensational profits to the holders. Failure of the “System” came only when the speculators and investors, seeking to convert their new paper fortunes into specie, forced the bank to suspend cash payments. Panic and all but universal bankruptcy marked the end (
DNB
).
1839-08-29
Cold and cloudy. At home all day. Evening at the Mansion.
I have not much to record of this day beyond what happens very regularly. I devoted a couple of hours to copying and one to studying out Law’s System in Stewart’s political Economy.1 I am gaining the details by degrees but the measures are so intricate that it will require a great deal of time and patience to evolve them. I think yet that I shall find something which will pay me for it. But I lose my German.
After dinner Tacitus book 1, sections 30–50 of the history, and an hour’s work upon my grounds. Evening spent at the house below. My father had been to Cambridge to the ΦΒΚ and returned late.
Dugald Stewart, Notes of Lectures on Political Economy, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1802. These volumes contain the notes, purportedly verbatim, taken by a student at Stewart’s lectures in 1800. Stewart’s own text was first published in his Works in 1854 (
DNB
).
1839-08-30
Stormy. To town, return to dine. Afternoon and evening at home.
I arose very early this morning in order to be prepared if my father inclined to accept Mr. Loring’s invitation to a fishing excursion at Cohasset. But the wind was East and had been blowing so hard all night that he concluded to remain at home.
I went to Boston. Time taken up in little commissions as usual. Finished my copy of the paper for the heirs which is to be forthwith presented. Just as I was starting to come home Mr. Freeman Hunt came in and kept me some time. He had nothing new to say but seemed 287desirous of procuring for me a review of Mr. Felt’s book on Currency.1 I told him, I had hardly the time, particularly as I was busy about collecting materials for this proposed lecture upon credit which I ought to make good if I make anything.
Reached home late and just as a heavy rain and gale of wind from the Northeastward was setting in, which continued all day and all night blowing with furious violence. Read Tacitus book 1 s 50 to 70, and being at home in the evening went on with Lear. Being situated upon the north corner the noise of the wind prevented my sleeping soundly for several hours.
Joseph Barlow Felt, Historical Account of Massachusetts Currency, Boston, 1839.