Sun rose 4.22. Set 7:39.
This was the day of the great celebration of the completion of the
monument on Bunker hill; and never since the existence of the three
hills was there such a concourse of strangers upon their sides as has
been assembled on the banks of “Majestic Charles” this day— What a name
in the annals of mankind is Bunker hill?— What a day, was the 17th. of June 1775? and what a burlesque upon
them both is an oration upon them by Daniel Webster, and a pilgrimage of John Tyler and his Cabinet of
Slave-drivers, to desecrate the solemnity by their presence! And then a
dinner at Faneuil Hall in honour of a President of the United States
hated and despised by those who invited him to it, themselves as
cordially hated and despised by him. I have throughout my life had an
utter aversion to all pageants, and public dinners, and never attended
one, when I could decently avoid it— I was a student at Cambridge when
on the 17th. of June 1786. Charles river
bridge was opened— The colleges were emptied on that day of the Students
who flocked to witness the procession and the pageant— I passed the day
in the solitude of my Study, and dined almost alone in the Hall. I had
then no special motive for my absence— But now with the ideal
association of the thundering cannon which I heard and the smoke of
burning Charlestown which I saw on that awful day, combined with this
Pyramid of Quincy granite, and Daniel Webster spouting with a negro holding an umbrella over his
head, and John Tyler’s nose with a shadow outstreching that of
the monumental column; how could I have witnessed all this at once
without an unbecoming burst of indignation or of laughter? Daniel
Webster is a heartless traitor to the cause of human freedom. John Tyler
is a Slave-monger—what have these to do with the Quincy granite pyramid
on the brow of Bunker’s hill?— What have these to do, with a dinner in
Faneuil hall, but to swill like swine and grunt about the rights of
man?— I stayed at home and visited my seedling trees; and heard the
cannonades of the rising, the meridian and the setting Sun—and answered
a Letter from the Revd. Joseph Emerson dated at
New-London Connecticut making enquiries about a translation of Voltaire’s philosophical
dictionary, published under the name of John Quincy Adams, and secretly
circulating as he says, about the country, as my work— I saw the Sun set
from the front of Charles’s
house, at the extremity of his northwestern declination, and as I heard
the cannonade salute of the closing day, and saw the smoke ascending
from the side of the pyramid, the top of which was full in view; then
came in forcible impulse to my memory the cannonade, and the smoke and
the fire of the 17th. of June 1775— I waited
to see the revolving fire of the Boston Light house kindled, and then
returned to my peaceful home