31 August 1840
adams-john10 Neal Millikan
82 Quincy. August 1840.

31. IV:30. Monday.

Curtis Nathaniel Bowen Dijah Bowditch Dr Barnard Cornell Revd. William Wood

Sun rose 5:23— Set 6.37. both beclouded.

Preparations for departure on our voyage to Halifax, Nova Scotia— Mr Curtis came over from Jamaica Plains to concert arrangements for our voyage.— I despatched a Letter, and a parcel of pamphlets to the Revd Josiah Adams of Parkersburg, Virginia, and a Letter to Mr Thomas Adams junr to apologize for my non-attendance, at the Norfolk County, whig Ladies Pic Nic next Thursday. There was an advertisement in this Morning’s Boston Newspapers requesting that the Passengers by the Steamer Acadia should be on board, by half past 10. to-morrow morning, and that their baggage should be sent on board this evening. but Mr Curtis said Captain Miller had told him he should leave the wharf punctually at noon.— Dijah Bowen came for his papers relating to his claim in the right of Rene Gedeon, to bounty Lands, for enlistment in the Legion of franks at New-Orleans, in February 1814. I thought and told Mr Bowen that I had left his papers on a file at Washington, to be sent round by water to Boston; but after he was gone I found the papers, and a Letter of 30 December 1839. from William Gordon, chief clerk of the Bounty Land-Office to me, adverse to the claim.— I made up a packet of all the papers, and enclosed them to Mr Bowen— Dr Bowditch and Mr Barnard came out from Boston this afternoon and repeated an invitation renewed from last year, and which I had some weeks since received from the Warren street Association, to deliver the introductory Lecture to their course for the approaching Season.— Without positively declining, I referred them to a definitive answer after my return from my proposed excursion.— The Revd. Mr Cornell was here this Evening with young Wood; for whom I made application for a Cadet’s warrant for June 1841. when Zealous B. Tower is to vacate the place of Cadet from the 12th. Congressional District of Massachusetts— The young man is exceedingly anxious to obtain the appointment; and I promised to do all in my power to obtain it for him; giving him fair warning of the crosses, and difficulties and dangers and pernicious temptations of the life that he was aspiring to encounter, and fervently exhorted him if he should persist in his purpose and obtain the appointment, to use all his exertions to make good the place of his predecessor, who for three successive years and ever since his admission has been at the head of his class— My wife was much indisposed all this day and evening— Charles went to Boston, and returned home to dine— Miss Henshaw came out from Boston and is to stay with his wife during his absence— I spent the Evening at his house. Louisa C. Smith is sickening into the same state in which she was last Autumn, and is attended by Dr Woodward.

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