- Elgar— Joseph
- Silsbee— Nathan
l - Maury— Richard
- Slade— William j
r - Dickins. Asbury
- Bateman— Ephraim
- Forward— Chauncey
- Clark— Satterlee
- Hellen— Thomas J.
Stopped in my morning walk at C. B.
King’s and sat to Mr. Harding and Mr
Greenough at the same time— The first for a Portrait, the
second for a Bust—promised them another sitting Saturday Morning. I sent
for Mr
Elgar the Commissioner of the Public Buildings, and spoke
of an application of Houston for the
purchase of a certain Lot of the public Land in this City, for which he
makes what Elgar considers a fair offer, but Robert King has a claim upon the land, for services which
he alledges to have rendered heretofore as a Surveyor to the value of
500 dollars, and for which he appeals to a verbal promise of a former
City Commissioner of this same land— Elgar says that his predecessor
Lane, refused to acknowledge
this claim, and that he cannot acknowledge it unless by direction from
me— I desired him to see Mr King and require
him to present a Statement of his claim in writing— Mr
Silsbee came with papers from J.
A. Bates, reviewing his claim for an appointment as a
purser in the Navy, and his complaints of injustice from the Navy
Department, in not giving him the appointment before— I took the papers,
and told Mr Silsbee that Bates’s complaints
were founded upon inadmissible pretension and misrepresentations—
Mr
Maury came from the Navy Department with a Commission for
one of the Lieutenants recently appointed, which I signed— He afterwards
sent me two others. Mr Slade from the Department of State, came with
the ratifications of the three Conventions, concluded by Mr
Gallatin, with Great-Britain 1. The Commercial Convention
of 6. August 1827. 2. The North-western Boundary Convention also of 6.
August 1827. and 3. The North-eastern boundary Convention of 29.
November 1827. which I signed— They are to be sent to England by a young
Mr
Blunt as a special messenger— Mr
Dickins, Secretary to the Columbian Institute, brought me
to examine Designs for a Seal and Diploma, for that Society, well drawn,
and which suggesting some alterations I approved. They have not adopted
the device I had proposed for a Seal, but propose in its stead a hissing
rattlesnake coiled round a book; to which I object as odious imagery;
and instead of the classical motto from Horace Lucent Sidera Nautis, with the Ship; they have
discarded the Ship, and substituted for the motto Favent Astra; which I
disapproved, as an idea borrowed from the false Science of judicial
Astrology, and therefore inappropriate to an Institution for the
promotion of true Science— On this as on the former occasion of the
Pediment to the Capitol, I observe the extreme diversities in the
Sentiments of learned and ingenious men, upon matters of taste and
invention— My device for the Seal, and motto were in my own self-conceit
ingenious, classical elegant and appropriate—but no one thought them so,
except myself; and they have taken in its stead a Serpent Sibilant,
which would be an excellent emblem for the House of Representatives at
this time, but is in my judgment a very absurd one for a learned and
literary Institute; and instead of the Stars of Horace, illuminating the
Mariner’s Night, they have the Stars of judicial astrology, favouring
the deadly venom of the Rattlesnake— Mr
Dickins also gave me some seeds of two or three plants which he has
received since the Circular of the Institute was sent out a variety of
Lettuce from Alabama, and the Turpentine weed— Mr
Bateman, the Senator, and Mr Forward of the House
of Representatives, of the Committee of enrolled Bills, brought me two
short Bills which I signed— Satterlee
Clark called for the decision upon his case, and his
papers; which had been sent to the War Department— Thomas J. Hellen dined with us.
Johnson and Mary are yet both confined to their
chambers—