And the word of the Lord came unto me saying 5. Go thy way, and show my people their sinful deeds, and their children their wickedness, which they have done against me; that they may tell their children’s children— 2. Esdras 1.4–5
On the 30th. of September 1845. I was
compelled to desist from the practice which I had maintained with some
four intervals of exception for more than half a century of keeping in
my own hand a daily journal of the incidents of my life— Unwilling to
give it up entirely, I continued with the assistance of my two daughters, and
especially of my grand daughter Mary
Louisa, through the last winter, and until the close of
the Session of Congress on the 10th. of
August— As the Summer came on I recovered partially the use of my right
hand, and with untiring labour have brought up my Diary to this day— But
I have lost again the command of my right hand and cannot hope to
recover it again— I have but a few days more to live, and the record of
that remnant can be of little interest even to my Son, and to those of my family
whom I am about to leave behind— There has perhaps not been another
individual of the human race of whose daily existence from early
childhood to four score years has been noted down with his own hand so
minutely as mine— At little more than twelve years of age I began to
journalize, and nearly two years before that on the 11th. of February 1778. I embarked from my
maternal uncle, Norton Quincy’s
house at Mount Wollaston on board the Boston Frigate Captain Samuel Tucker then lying in
Nantasket roads, and bound to France— I was then ten years and seven
months old, and the house whence I embarked had been built by my great
grandfather John Quincy—upon his
marriage with Elizabeth
Norton in 1716. There he lived to the age of 77 years, and
there he died on the 13th. of July 1767—the
day after I had received his name in baptism— If my intellectual powers
had been such as have sometimes committed by the creator of man to
single individuals of the species my diary would have been next to the
holy scriptures the most precious and valuable book ever written by
human hands, and I should have been one of the greatest benefactors of
my Country and of mankind— I would by the irresistible power of Genius,
and the inexpressible energy of will and the favour of almighty God,
have banished War and Slavery from the face of the earth forever—but the
conceptive power of mind was not conferred upon me by maker, and I have
not improved the scanty portion of his gifts as I might and ought to
have done. May I never cease to be grateful for the numberless blessings
received through life at his hands—never repine at what he has
denied—never murmur at the dispensations of his Providence, and implore
his forgiveness for all the errors and delinquencies of my life—