John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

13. V. Wednesday— Boston—back to Quincy

Charles’s daughter Louisa Catherine was this day three years old— I sent this morning to Mr Price Greenleaf requesting him to come and bud some trees for me— He came and budded five seedling Apple socks in my Nursery with buds of the Norton Quincy Apple from Solomon Thayer. Two of them are of the row next to the Nectarine tree at the north-end of the Nursery. Charles went to Boston and Medford, and I went to Boston with Wilson— Called at Alexander H. Everett’s house, and he gave me the report and Resolutions which he had prepared for the Committee of the Board of Overseers, as a substitute for mine— The report is a mere caption to the Resolutions with an excuse for not presenting an Address to the Public, on the ground of wanting time to prepare it with due deliberation; and asking leave to sit again for that purpose— After some short discussion I agreed to take Mr Everett’s Report and Resolutions and examine them, and report them to the Committee for consideration to-morrow morning— I expressed very strongly my opinion against the presentation in the Circular of the Senior Class to be 375exempted from prosecution at Law, for property destroyed, belonging to the University— Mr Everett thought the prosecution in this instance was unpopular— I said I believed the pretension of the Students would ultimately prove much more unpopular; but that I looked not to popularity, but to Justice— He said there were three members of the Committee against the Prosecution— I thought, only two— He claimed Dr Codman, whom I considered as only doubting— Everett then asked me to consider the claim of the Students to exemption from prosecution—upon the ground of youth and inexperience—which I promised to do. At 11. O’Clock I attended a Meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences— There were less than ten members present, and the only communications received were acceptances of election of members— I had at the Statute Meeting of last August proposed the Revd N. L. Frothingham as a Member— I found on the Book of nominations that this one had been acted on the 27th. of May last, and on enquiry, was informed by Mr Treadwell, the corresponding Secretary that he had wanted one vote of three fourths of the ballots and was therefore not admitted— Treadwell said Mr Frothingham had been proposed once before. Dr Bigelow asked me if I was acquainted with the merits of Dr Jones, heretofore of the Patent Office— I was not. He said he was Editor of the Journal of the Franklin Institute. The meeting was not more than a quarter of an hour long, and on the whole did the most nothing of any meeting of a Scientific body that I ever attended. After it was over, I spoke to Mr Bowditch who is a member of the Corporation of the University, about the prosecution of the three Sophomores by Indictment before the Court of Common Pleas for the County of Middlesex— He said the measure had been unanimously approved by the Corporation, and also by Judge Jackson, who had been a member of the Board, but had lately resigned— He said too that the prosecution was not a novelty, but that there had been repeated instances of it for the last fifty years, though never carried through to judgment— He said that thirteen of the Students had testified at Concord without hesitation, and two after making some objection, and having the Law explained to them— I went to Charles’s Office and remained there till near three. Purchased for Mary Louisa, the Dairy and Cowslip, and Pierpont’s introduction to the National Reader— At three I went to the Marlborough Hotel, and dined with Alexander Townsend. This House belongs to him and is kept, by a Mr and Mrs Wyatt who kept the house at Dover New-Hampshire where we lodged last September— I saw Mrs Wyatt in her parlour— The company at dinner were chiefly classmates of Mr Townsend, with the addition of Lieutent Governor Armstrong, Franklin Dexter, and Mr Blake a lawyer from Bangor, and Dr J. M. Wainwright, now rector of Trinity Church—Boston— I had ordered Wilson to call for me in the Chaise at 6. and at the dusk of Evening I got home— We had Evening visits from Mr Beale and his three daughters, and from Mr and Mrs Emmons their relatives. There is great excitement and agitation in Boston and the neighbourhood on account of the destruction, on Monday night by a mob, of a Convent of Ursulines—Nuns at Charlestown— The immediate and ostensible cause of the outrage, was a rumour circulated among the people, that a young woman who had taken the veil, and then ran away, had been carried back and was detained there, by force— There is a singular inertness in the public authorities