John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

20. V:45. Thursday. Dinner party.

After my daily morning walk round the Capitol Square, I walked partly round the garden— Vegetation is in progress, but Ouseley complains of the morning frosts. There is yet no appearance of flowers. The blossoms of the Peach are however beginning to open— My trees which came up last year from the stone give no sign of life: but the self-planted wild cherries, which shed their leaves only in December, are already putting forth fresh ones— The Lombardy-Poplar aments are beginning to fall from the trees— After breakfast two men came, one of whom invited me to visit the wild beasts of which there is an exhibition in the City— The other had a machine which he called a knife, and said was made by Conrade and Muckle of New-York— In a hollow cubic, pen knife handle, with two subsidiary parts fitting in to its centre, like the tubes of an Opera Glass there were great numbers, he said 365, one for every day in the year, of pen knife blades— A curious show, but of no earthly utility— A Mr Campbell brought me a subscription paper for a republication at Philadelphia of Lingard’s History of England— I declined subscribing, but told him I would take a set, if the work was complete— Governor Barbour called respecting the appointment of a professor of Philosophy at West-Point— The present Professor Mansfield asks a furlough till the first of September and that . . . resignation may then take effect— Governor Barbour brought also with him an original Letter dated October 1812, from General Jackson to George W. Campbell, then a Senator from Tennessee, demanding the removal of Silas Dinsmoor, then an Indian Agent, because he had stopped a Negro trader who was passing through the Indian Country; he not having a Passport— Jackson was so highly incensed at this that he wrote to G. W. Campbell, requiring him to call upon the Secretary of War, and give him warning that if Dinsmoor should not be immediately removed, the 474people of the West-Tennessee would burn him up in his agency— This Letter and several others relating to the same Subject have lately been found at the War Department in the searches for the correspondence concerning the execution of the Tennessee Militia men at Mobile. Another motive too has spurred the search for some of his original Letters— In the Legislature of Louisiana last Spring, some of his partizans got up a Resolution inviting him to attend in person the anniversary celebration of the 8th. of January at New-Orleans— He caught eagerly at this bait, and went with a numerous train of attendants, from Nashville to New-Orleans in the dead of Winter, to exhibit himself in pompous pageantry— His reception was equivocal; with a laborious effort of magnificence, and mortifying indications of ill-will and disgust among the people— Deputations were sent from various other States, from Meetings of his devotees to meet him at the celebration, and five or six Addresses of fulsome adulation were delivered to him, to which he returned answers of cold and high wrought rhetorician eloquence— These Answers were all written by Harry Lee, who has become an inmate in his family, and attended him to New-Orleans— As they were in an ambitious and Court-dress Style, some of his impudent Jackalls fell into extasies in the Newspapers at his eloquence and fine literary composition; and they were boldly claiming for him the reputation of an elegant writer— But the General in one of his raving fits, had sent one of his Nashville white-washing Committee’s pamphlets on his matrimonial adventures, to Peter Force Editor of the National Journal, and had written with his own hand, though without signing his name, on the title page, about four times insulting to Force, and grossly insolent to the Administration— Coarse, vulgar and false in its invective, it was couched in language worthy of Antient Pistol, and set all grammar and spelling alike at defiance— When the Panegyrics upon the composition of answers to the New-Orleans addresses began to thicken, and the peal of parasitical applause to swell, Force published literatim the manuscript note sent him with the Nashville Committee Report, and in a very short commentary marked the contrast between the wording of the Note, and the tawdry elegance of the Answers to the addresses— On the day of Force’s publication, White the Senator and Polk a member of the House from Tennessee, called at his Office, and asked to see the pamphlet with the note— It was shewn them, and to the enquiry whether they recognised the hand-writing of the Note they answered with equivocation and evasion. The Liars of the News papers were more bold; they denied that the manuscript note was written by Jackson, and treated as infamous calumny the assertion that it was— This has stimulated to the discovery of more of Jackson’s autograph Letters, and among the rest is this one to G. W. Campbell— It is still more ferocious than barbarous in Style and composition. It has got wind among the friends of the Administration, and some of them are struggling to get it into Light— It is evidently from the same hand as the Note on the pamphlet sent to Force— Mrs Simpson came to solicit the appointment of Superintendant of the Patent Office, for her husband— It is not yet vacant; but Dr Thornton lies at the Point of Death— Mr Newton, member of the House from Virginia, introduced Mr. Tompkins of that State, and Coll. Little member from Baltimore County came with Mr Magruder of that City— He brought a Petition of Joseph Badger, Master of the Ship Alabama of Portland Maine; seized at New-Orleans for carrying 14 Slaves— I signed the remission of the penalty. General Macomb called, and spoke of the appointment of a Professor of Philosophy at West Point, and earnestly recommended Lieutenant Courtnay— The General for the first time spoke to me of the political topics of the time, and avowed his own partiality for the present Administration— He has hitherto so far as I have known maintained an exemplary neutrality. 475Mr Rush came with a statement of funds in the Treasury, and an estimate of the payment on account of the public debt to be made on the 1st. of July next, which he proposes shall be five Millions of dollars of the principal. The estimate of revenue for the first and second Quarters of the present year, and its present prospects, are of increase upon the receipts of the corresponding Quarters last year— Mr Rush said he should call a meeting of the Commissioners of the sinking fund; and expect the Vice President would renew his proposition to drain the Treasury by a larger payment—which could not be made without exposing us to a deficiency, in the event of any sudden pressure, or untoward accident, from which a hue and cry against the Administration could be raised— Mr Rush read me another Letter and Resolution from the Retrenchment Committee calling for a statement of the present Organization of the Treasury Department; the duties of all the Officers belonging to it, and other enquiries to which Mr Rush said no other proper answer could be given, than a reference to the Laws— We had company to dine. S. B. and Mrs Barrell, Nathl. and Mrs Frye, H. Huntt J. L. Kerr, Captain and Mrs Kuhn, C F Mercer, R. Rush, W. S. and Mrs Smith, Miss Swan, and D. Webster— I wrote in the Evening.