9 August 1827
adams-john10 Neal Millikan Recreation
263

9. IV:58. Sun rising— Thunder Shower in the Night.

Wheeler Winthrop— Thomas L Quincy Mrs and Susan Green— Mrs Smith— Louisa C Dean— Elijah jr. Royall. Mrs Ann Woodward Joseph Dal Verme— Count Jacques Beale— George Quincy— Josiah

I took a ride this morning after Breakfast with my brother, to Braintree; and we stopped at Mr James Howards. At ten O’Clock, Mr Wheeler, the Painter from Cincinnati came, and I sat to him with various interruptions till two. He dined with us; and immediately after dinner went away, to return to Boston, in the Stage from Plymouth— The lists of visitors in the margin, on this and other days, are my only apologies for the loss of Time, which I am constantly lamenting, but never repair— Mr Winthrop, Mrs Quincy and her two daughters, called before dinner. Louisa Smith dined, and spent the day here— She is on a visit at Mr Daniel Greenleaf’s— Dean is a farmer, and Seller of baskets from a neighbouring town, who came from an overweening curiosity to see and talk with the President, and sold me a basket, but would not take for it more than a quarter of a dollar— Mrs Royall came from Boston, in the Stage with my Son Charles— She is going to Plymouth and travelling about the Country to make another book— She continues to make herself noxious to many persons; tolerated by some, and feared by others; by her deportment and her books, treating all with a familiarity, which often passes for impudence: insulting those who treat her with incivility, and then lampooning them in her books— Stripped of all her sex’s delicacy but unable to forfeit its privilege of gentle treatment from the other, she goes about like a virago errant in enchanted armour, and redeems herself from the cravings of indigence by the notoriety of her eccentricities, and the forced currency they give to her publications. Mr Woodward was here but a moment— The Count dal Verme introduced himself as the Son of a man of the same name, an Italian who travelled in this Country in 1788. He produced two Original Letters, dated in that year— One a Letter of Recommendation from General Washington, the other a Letter from Dr. Ezra Stiles, then President of Yale College, to the Count himself announcing to him that a degree of Doctor of Laws had been conferred upon him, at their recent Commencement— He had also a written paper, in English, purporting to be a note from his father, and a list of names of persons of distinction in this Country, from whom he states that he had received numerous kind attentions, and the note advises the Son to visit the Survivors of that list. Mr Adams is one of the names at Boston, which must have been meant for Samuel Adams: but this young man supposed it was my father, who at that time, and for five years 264afterwards was absent in Europe.— I received and treated this Count with civility, but there was something so peculiar in his self-introduction, and his documents that I could not resist some distrust of his authenticity— He told me that he had come from Liverpool to New-York, and was now going to Quebec. Mr Beale and Mr Quincy paid short visits— The Mayor was somewhat exasperated against Mrs Royall, who he said was this morning near being brought up before the Police Court— I paid an evening visit at Mr John Greenleaf’s, and in my walk met Mr Marston who turned and went with me— He said he had received a Letter of complaint from his Son in Law, Henry D’Wolf of Bristol Rhode-Island, because he had not obtained for him the appointment of Collector, when Drury was removed: and said that he wanted the place the more urgently because his property had been deeply involved in the failure of George D’Wolf. I told him that circumstance alone must have prevented the appointment of Henry D’Wolf, as George D’Wolf had been the bondsman of Drury, and we believed that Drury’s delinquencies had gone principally into the sink of George D’Wolf’s debts— I bathed with Antoine at One.

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