John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

12. IV:45 Wednesday.

Mr Joscelyn and Mr Bryant are a Committee of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, to collect contributions for completing the monument upon Bunker Hill; a project which has just been revived with great fervour and for which there have been public Meetings and eloquent Speeches, and spunging Committees to collect Subscriptions in all the towns round Boston— I declined giving any further contribution, observing that I had given 100 dollars 95at the first undertaking of the work, and thought that was my full proportion; and I added that I was not altogether satisfied with the manner in which the first contributions had been expended— Mr Joscelyn said he believed the charges against the Directors, of mismangement of the funds were ill founded, a satifactory explanation and statement of their proceedings having been given by them— I said it might be so—but I had not seen it— Mr Bryant thanked me for the assistance I had given at the Session of Congress before last, in obtaining an act of Congress for the payment of a claim which he and his associates had against the Government, and which was refused upon a senseless opinion given by the Attorney General Roger B. Taney— This afternoon a man alighted at my house from the Stage, and directed the Stageman to call for him here, next Monday Morning— He came in and announced himself as an old and very intimate acquaintance by the name of Hart— I recognized neither him nor his name— He said his intimacy with me had been at Mr Macqueen’s house at the Hague in 1795 and 1796 and 7. It was with my brother Thomas; whose intimacy at Macqueen’s I well remember, but in which I had no participation— I saw Macqueen several times; but never was at his house— Macqueen was an Englishman who kept a jewellers shop— Holland and Great-Britain were then at War, and as Minister from the United States I purposely abstained from frequenting an Englishman who was allowed to reside and keep his shop there; but was regarded with some Suspicion— Macqueen had a handsome and lively wife, and my brother was less scrupulous of acquaintance than I was. Mr Hart upon finding that he had now mistaken me for my brother, said that he recollected me— That my brother had introduced him to me, and he had then a project for coming to America and establishing a glass manufactory here—concerning which he had then consulted me— He said he had since then lived in various countries—particularly many years in France; before and after the downfall of Napoleon— That he had now been about five years in this Country, with which he was delighted— That he resided at New-York, but had recently come from Canada. That he now contemplated establishing a new manufactory, in Boston or its vicinity, of Files, Saws, and Pins; but it was a great undertaking and would require a large capital, and an associated company— I asked him if he knew any thing about the present condition of Macqueen or his family. He seemed unwilling to speak of them— He said there had been irregularities in the family— That Macqueen’s wife had left him and gone off with a Captain Stofford, Captain of an English small vessel of War, lost on the Coast of Holland, and whom he had often met with my brother at Macqueen’s— I remembered my brothers having repeatedly spoken to me of this Captain Stofford. I mentioned that Macqueen came to see me when I was at Ghent in 1814—and complained of having been severely persecuted and abused—and that he was then poor and miserable— I find in my Letter-book of that time a Letter to my brother of 17. September 1814 giving him an account of Macqueen’s visit to me, and of his complaints— His wife was then with him— I told Mr Hart that my brother died in March of last year; and I regretted his disappointment, on learning that his old friend was deceased, and I felt some mortification that Mr Harts account of his own adventures for the intervening forty years since his acquaintance with my brother, and his present speculative objects, with some apparent unwillingness to speak of his present Situation, prospects and connections in this Country, did not encourage me to offer him those hospitalities which he seemed confidently to have expected from my brother— After about half an hour’s conversation, he enquired the way to French’s Inn, to which he proceeded— Mr Daniel Greenleaf accompanied our Ladies home, returning from a visit to his wife— We heard this day of the terrible Catastrophe, the explosion of the Steamboat Lioness, on the Mississippi, by which Josiah S. Johnston the Senator, and Edward D. White member of the House from Louisiana, lost their Lives.