John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

5. VI. Tuesday.

The overwhelming calamity which has befallen me, has in a great measure prostrated my faculties, both of mind and body. Reason is unseated, and nature sinks in the agony of imagination. Dr. Huntt and Mrs Frye were here this day— The Dr. had little to tell except particulars of the delinquencies of that wretch Watkins, the pretext for an unfeeling and profligate system of official proscription, extending over the whole Union— My dear wife, suffering under severe indisposition herself; and affectionate with the most vivid attachments of a mother’s love; sustains this blow with fortitude firmer than my own— I passed with her almost the whole of this day— We agreed that I should read in the book of Common Prayer, to-morrow the service of the Dead; in the humble hope that our Creator, will graciously condescend to accept it in behalf of our hapless Son— I walked alone; two hours before dinner; to the Rockville Road thence to the Turnpike, and back by the way of the College— In this walk I meditated a prayer to God; believing that the severe dispensations of his providence, are intented for wise and good purposes; imploring him that his purpose in this may be known and felt by us, and that it may bear the fruits of blessedness upon us and upon our conduct— This is the temper of mind into which I believe I ought to be brought by this Event, and for which the grace of God is yet necessary to controul the depravity of my nature— I long to cast off the world; and would henceforth commune only with God, and with my own family— The Law of my members wars with the Law of my heart. I was not able effectually to accomplish my prayer and must meditate over it again— Oh! my unhappy Son! what a Paradise of earthly enjoyment I had figured to my self as awaiting thee and me— It is withered for ever— But let not murmuring or repining pass from my lips— I received a Letter from my Son John written last Evening at Baltimore.