John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

879

22. IV. I walked as usual to my ordinary bathing place, and came to the rock where I leave my clothes a few minutes before sunrise— I found several persons there, besides three or four who were bathing; and at the shore under the tree a boat with four men in it, and a drag net— There was a large two-mast boat in the channel opposite the rock; at anchor; and a man on the shore who requested those in the two mast boat, to raise their anchor, and drop thirty or forty-yards down the stream, as they were in the way of the boat with the drag net which was going in search of a dead body. I enquired if any one had been drowned, and the man told me it was old Mr Shoemaker, a clerk in the Post-Office; a man upwards of 60 years of age, who last evening between 5 and 6 O’Clock, went in to bathe with four other persons— That he was drowned in full sight of them, and without a suspicion by them that he was even in any danger— They had observed him struggling in the water, but as he was an excellent swimmer had supposed he was merely diving; until after coming out they found he was missing— They then commenced an ineffectual search for him which was continued late into the night— The man said to me that he had never seen a more distressed person 880than Mrs Shoemaker last Evening— While the two mast boat was dropping down the stream and the other boat was preparing to go out with the drag, I stripped and went in to the river; I had been not more than ten minutes swimming when the drag boat started, and they were not five minutes from the shore when the body floated immediately opposite the rock; less than one hundred yards from the shore, at the very edge of the channel and where there were could not be seven foot deep of water— I returned immediately to the shore and dressed— a rope was tied round one of the arms; and the boat remained at the spot, till a blanket had been sent for, which was spread under the tree; the boat then returned to the shore drawing the body through the water, and it was lifted from the water and brought and laid upon the blanket and covered up. The only part of the body which had the appearance of stiffness was the arms, both of which were raised at the shoulder joints and crooked towards each other at the elbows; as if they had been fixed by a spasm at the very moment when they were to expand to keep the head above water— There was a dark flush of settled blood over the face, like one excessively heated, and a few drops of thin blood and water issued from one ear— There was nothing terrible or offensive in the sight; but I returned home musing in sympathy with the distressed Lady; and enquiring uncertainly whether I ought to renounce altogether my practice of swimming in the river— My conclusion was that I ought not—deeming it in this climate indispensable to my health—so that whatever danger there may be in the exercise, and that there is much danger, this incident offers melancholy and cumulative proof—there would be yet greater danger in abstaining from it, or in substituting any other effective exercise in its place— We are and always must be in the hands of God, and to him are indebted for every breath we draw.

symbols 18. Saul. Jonathan and David 19— Michal and David’s escape

881

Polk is a sailing Master in the Navy applying for an appointment as Captain of a Revenue Cutter; very strongly recommended.

Read— Captain with Polk—

Barbour— S.W. has despatched the Letters to Genl. Gaines and to Governor Troup of Georgia, interdicting the survey of the Indian Lands— He returned me Troup’s last Letter with its enclosures; and with a very decided opinion that I ought not to answer it— He afterwards sent me back the two Letters of Wade Hampton and T. Cooper. He proposed to write to T. P. Andrews, expressing disapprobation at his letter to Crowell suspending him from the Agency, because it contained an unnecessary censure upon the proceedings of the Legislature of Georgia—which I agreed to, and said I had already thought of mentioning to him— Mr Barbour proposes to take another leave of absence, unable to endure the heat of this place.

He will go to-morrow—

Captain Read came again and introduced a young Mr Hartley, an Officer on the British establishment in Canada; grandson to a brother of David Hartley the British Plenipotentiary at the Peace of 1783. and Coll Hartley, Member of Parliament for Berkshire, whom I saw in London in the winter of that same year.

Southard— S.N.T. came and introduced to me, Mr King the Navy Agent at Norfolk, Virginia.

Hawley—Revd. Mr came with Mr Allen, Minister of the Episcopal Church at the Navy-Yard, who applied for the appointment of his brother, a graduate of the Middlebury College in Vermont, as a Chaplain to go out in the frigate Brandywine.

The excessive heat which has continued many days was this day first shortly tempered by a thunder gust about the middle of the day, which lasted two or three hours, and then cleared off with a dead calm and the thermometer about 85—

I have never experienced such a Summer symbols