John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

23. V:30. Captain O’Brien came this Morning to my house, to enquire if the President had decided upon his claim of remuneration for making a Peace for the United States with Tripoli, near twenty-five years ago: because he said he understood I was clearing out, to steer to the North East, and was to get under weigh to-morrow-Morning. Dr Thornton, and Dr Allison also called upon me, to ask if the President had come to a determination, upon their project; which is that Thornton should be appointed an agent to South-America, and that Allison should be superintendent of the Patent Office, in his stead— Thornton has long set his heart upon this agency to South-America.— He is a man of some learning, and much ingenuity; of quick conception and lively wit; entirely destitute of Judgment, discretion and common sense. He has been nearly twenty years Superintendent of the Patent Office; a place principally made by Mr Madison to put him in it, and there has scarcely issued from it during the whole time a Patent, for any invention, but the Doctor had a counter claim, as the inventor of the same thing himself. He has a fine taste in Architecture, and a real turn for mechanical invention; but no steadiness to pursue any thing to a useful result— He has very foolishly made himself a fanatical partizan for the revolutionary South-Americans; and has committed the grossest indiscretions in pursuit of this ignis fatuus—to the extent of pretending to negotiate between M’Gregor and the Government of the United States; and publishing under a fictitious signature in the National Intelligencer the substance of the Negotiation— The Doctor is a Horse-racer too, and often boasts that the South-Americans have repeatedly offered to appoint him a Coll. of Cavalry in their service. He considers himself as the principal author of the South-American Revolution, and that all the principal measures of the Patriots have been adopted at his suggestion— In the course of my life I have met with very few men of minds at once so active, intelligent, and weak. Yet he is withal a man of good intentions, and generally harmless deportment. As Superintendent of the Patent Office, he is useful; and fully competent to the place— Though by his interfering pretensions he gives great offence to many of the Patentees. As for the agency to South-America, the President considers him utterly unfit for any such office, and will never appoint him to it; but with him as with other claimants for preposterous things, it is one of the duties of my Office to temper refusal with politeness: the inconvenience of which is that tenacious applicants, return to the attack like flies in dog days; and never will take no, for an answer. Allison is an old Clergyman, who was a chaplain in our army during the Revolutionary War, and has been several years Chaplain to the House of Representatives in Congress— He is also an inventor and patentee; and has a competent knowledge of mechanics, and is almost as zealous in favour of the South-American Patriots, as Thornton himself. I told them that I believed the President did not contemplate sending any Agent to South-America, at present. At the President’s I found Mr Crawford and Mr Calhoun— Webster was again on the tapis for the appointment of Captain of the Revenue Cutter at Baltimore; and Crawford was taking a second decision of the President— I collected from what was said that the President adhered to his determination of Saturday. When he takes his bias he is seldom to be moved from it; and yet I am not confident of the result of this appointment. I read 160the draft of a circular Letter to the Ministers of the United States in Europe, concerning the new Instructions just despatched to Mr Forsyth— The draft was approved. At the Office Mr Bland came and took his papers; and by the President’s direction I wrote him a Letter, declaring the President’s full persuasion, that the imputations against Bland, of having had a personal interest in the piratical privateers were utterly without foundation. Mr Worthington came for the settlement of his Accounts, and to insist upon what he considered as in some sort his right, of having another appointment— This man, who is a shallow, prating, vain and silly fellow, to give himself an air of consequence at Buenos-Ayres, without a shadow of authority undertook to make a Treaty with Pueyrredon’s Government, in which there was a stipulation for the mutual admission of Consul’s— In consequence of which Pueyrredon sent De Forest here as Consul General— And when in Chili, Worthington became part owner of the Lautaro a ship of War, manned chiefly by desertions from American vessels; commanded by an American Captain, and very successful in war against the Spaniards. All this he now considers as quite justifiable; says he sees nothing in his conduct to disapprove, and thinks it quite extraordinary that he should be dismissed from the public service, as if he had not been faithful to his trust— I heard him with composure, upon these topics, about half an hour, and he closed by observing that he must either return to the practice of Law, for which he had no relish, or go and bury himself in Kentucky; intimating that he was not disposed, however great his provocation, to take part with any malcontents against the administration— I took no notice of this hint, but said I had readily heard all his remarks in defence of his own conduct; thought it would be useless for me to enter upon a discussion with him concerning it— I would remind him however that no censure had been passed upon him; and that in this Country, service in public Office gave no claim to further employment. I mentioned to him the case of many persons employed as Ministers of the United States abroad, who after returning home, were in private life, though nothing in their conduct had been liable to censure— He made no reply; though my doctrine was apparently too unpalateable to obtain his assent. On going away he gave me his hand with much assumed cordiality and a smiling countenance; and will now go, and as often as he can, abuse the administration in the newspapers; occasionally renewing his applications for a new appointment. I was engaged at the Office in preparations for departure till near seven in the Evening— Mr and Mrs Frye, Forbes, and W. S. Smith came and took leave. Poletica had called at the Office, and told me that Lomonossoff being unwell they had postponed their departure till Wednesday. Mrs Adams this Evening concluded to go with us.