John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

10. Visit in full dress from Count Schenk who came to take leave, and proposes to go home through Vienna— And from Mr Bentzon, who came and told me that he should go in seven or eight days— That he could come to no agreement here with the Government on account of the American Fur Company, and he wished to obtain through me, a Courier’s Passport— But he is going to Copenhagen, and intends to stop some time at Hamburg— I told him that I should have no despatches for Hamburg; and none for Copenhagen, except such as I should wish to have transmitted to America, and that the only rule I had made upon which I asked Courier’s Passes for the accommodation of Gentlemen was, that they should travel as Courier’s— I told him I thought it would be better for him to obtain a Pass through Baron Blome; but he said he did not wish to travel just at this time as a Danish Courier— I intended to have written this day, but these visits and Charles absorbed it almost entirely— In the Evening I read the Speech of Demosthenes against Phormio, and began that against Lacritus— Both these are upon actions to recover money upon what we should call respondentia— It was lent on stipulations for the shipment of certain merchandize at the risk of the creditor— The vessels were lost in both cases— The debtors pretended in both cases to have ship’d the goods, and thus to be discharged of the debts— The Creditors, for whom Demosthenes writes, insist that the goods were not 345ship’d and therefore that the debtors are still chargeable— The contract between the parties is repeated twice in the speech against Lacritus— These Harangues are curious, for the elucidation of the Athenian Laws; but they are otherwise very dull and tedious— Charles who was in my chamber almost the whole Evening, and who this day read four fables interrupted me so much that I could not finish the speech against Lacritus.