John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

16. IV.45. Saturday.

Isaac Hull went to Boston this morning with Charles and they both returned home to dine— I received a Letter from Mrs Anne Royall, remonstrating against my giving any countenance to Anti-Masonry— Dr Waterhouse came and dined with us, and returned early in the afternoon to Cambridge— He has recently returned from a visit to New-York, where he has a daughter married to a Son of Professor Ware— He met there Doctor Channing of Boston—and mentioned to me the purport of some of his conversations with him— Doctor Channing urged him to write a descriptive account of Rhode-Island, and a biography of the late Portrait Painter, Gilbert Stuart— But he says Stuart’s wife with tears in her eyes intreated him not to do it. The Doctor shewed me a Letter from Mr Madison to whom he had sent a copy of his book upon Junius— A polite Letter, assuring him that the book was very entertaining, but intimating with delicacy, that it has not discovered the Secret— The Doctor asked with some apparent anxiety what was my opinion— I said I thought much like Mr Madison— I said I was unwilling to believe Lord Chatham the author of Junius; because it would lower him in my opinion: but I added I should not be much astonished if positive proof should hereafter appear that he was the man; and then, said I, Doctor, you will pass for a prophet— He made some enquiries of me who was the Earl Temple, the back-stairs man who negotiated with George the third, the rejection by the House of Lords, of the Coalition India-Bill. It turned out to be George Grenville, son of the stupendous calculator of the Stamp-act—but we could not ascertain whether the present Duke of Buckingham was the Son or Grandson of this Earl Temple— Dr Waterhouse compiled a sort of historical novel, from the papers of an American Seaman, confined in Dartmoor prison during the late War, and published it in 1815— He has now thoughts of revising and publishing it again with his own name. I thought it would not now be likely to succeed so well as it did formerly. The subject being now of less general interest— I urged him rather to collect and republish the papers of his controversy concerning his professorship at Harvard University— He took back the Volumes of the Patriot which he had lent me containing those papers— I visited my Garden and Nursery, where the 229Walnut seedlings, are yet coming up in considerable numbers— All others have long since ceased to shew themselves— I cut off a twig from my walnut tree of 1804. covered with small caterpillars— They had dissected a neighbouring bough, leaving only skeletons of the leaves— Great part of the day was lost for writing.