- Clevenger
- Brooks Adam
- Grennell George
- Hastings William S
- Briggs George
- Hall Hiland
- Noyes
- Brooks Erastus
- Neven Edward
- M’leod
- Hull Isaac
- Biddle James
- Fowler
- Hopkins
The cold now prevents me from Journalizing before breakfast, and I can
find no time for it during the remainder of the day— A succession of
visitors absorbed the forenoon and till near 3 O’Clock after, when I
went to the Office of the Commissioner of Pensions, and left with him a
Letter to Mr
Phillips, concerning a claim of a widow Proctor to a pension.— Mr Edwards has just returned
from Boston and came in the Boat and Cars from Philadelphia, with
Elizabeth C Adams. I took
to Mr
Ragsdale’s
712office at the Navy Department the two other
Letters relating to Navy pension claims, but Ragsdale was already gone—
I came immediately home to dinner— There was a mass of snow in the
atmosphere which came down in the Evening and covered the ground—
Besides my visitors in person of this morning, Mr Arphaxed
Loomis and Mr William Taylor of New-York
left Cards this Morning.— I have finished the reading of the Memoir of
Burr’s life— An unprincipled
profligate of bright but shallow mind— Shipwrecked by his own follies, a
Beacon light for men of after ages— Punished more severely by loss of
character and standing than he could have been by loss of life— The
dreadful calamity of the loss of his
daughter; in a Sea-voyage from Charleston to New-York,
with a current rumour that she was murdered by Pirates is awfully
tragical; but she was a very ordinary woman.— Though he affected to have
her taught Greek and Latin— There is some smartness in her Letters,
but—Neither mind nor sensibility beyond the flattest common place— Her
most affecting Letter is one written in 1805. under a presentiment that
she was about to die—not realized— Burr’s league with Jefferson against my father was his ruin— There was
retributive Justice in that— But where was Jefferson’s punishment For
there was more perfidy, duplicity and treachery in Jefferson than in
Burr.— Jefferson’s good fortune lasted him through life, though he
lavished it till his death bed was debased to the beggary of pecuniary
contributions— His name yet rides rough shod over truth and Justice— His
great and brilliant qualities have carried him through a swamp of moral
turpitude—