John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

11. IV:30. Bath at the Mouth of the Tiber—alone— No appearance of ten Cate who had agreed to meet me there every morning between five and six—for which cause I did not leave home till five—nor get back till about seven. Mr Onis the Spanish Minister called on me at my house, to talk of the Negotiation; he was more tractable upon the subject of Pensacola. Said General Jackson had misunderstood Governor Masot’s allusion to force— That he had only meant to say that if Jackson attacked him he would repel force by force— Onis said further that there was an article in the capitulation, which he had not seen when he wrote his Note to me, and which took away part of the aggravation of the case— It was the promise to restore the place in suitable time. He said he had felt it to be his duty to write the Note, but that it needed not interrupt the progress of our Negotiations, or of those between Mr Pizarro and Mr Erving, if we preferred having the Treaty concluded there— I told him that was out of the question; but that we were ready to conclude here— He then said they were willing to give us the Florida’s for nothing; and 372as there were large claims of indemnity for depredations on both sides, they were willing to set them off against each other, each of the two Governments undertaking to indemnify its own people. For all this, they would only ask of us to take the boundary Westward, at the Carcasu or Mennentao—from the Mouth to the source, thence a line to pass between Adeas and Natchitoches to the red river, and from that to the Missouri— I told him all the other points would now be easily adjusted; but this last, which was impossible— But we would adjust the rest, and leave that in the same state, as it has been hitherto; to be adjusted hereafter— To this however he would not at all listen— We parted without any prospect of approximating. Rode on horseback to the Office. Received there a Letter from the President mentioning that he should leave little river to come to the City next Monday. The illness of Mrs Monroe has prevented him from coming sooner. A day of intense Summer heat. I retired to bed shortly after Sunset. This was my birthday, and I commenced upon the fifty second year of my age. It was a day of gratitude to Heaven for all the blessings bestowed upon me and my family; of prayer for the continuance of the bounties of Providence, so far as is compatible with the decrees of an all wise disposer— Of humiliation for my own weaknesses and deficiences both of body and mind and of humble hope, that Supreme goodness and power, will open to me an issue from the trial which I am now undergoing, useful to my Country, and honourable to myself— Above all, that till I die, I may not suffer my integrity to depart from me, and that for whatever dispensation of Providence hereafter awaits me, I may be prepared to receive it with Prudence, Temperance, Justice and Fortitude.