CHAPTER IV
THE BOSTON TEA PARTY
EVEN though it has little to say about his domestic life, I linger over John Adams' diary. It is enthralling reading; most of it belongs rather to history than to a slight record like this, yet here and there we get pleasant glimpses of the man himself.
Here he is on circuit, riding through Maine, which was then Massachusetts.
"Began my journey to Falmouth in Casco Bay. . . . Dined at Goodhue's, in Salem, where I fell in company with a stranger, his name I knew not. . . . One year more, he said, would make Americans as quiet as lambs; they could not do without Great Britain, they could not conquer their luxury, etc. Oated my horse, and drank balm tea at Treadwell's in Ipswich, where I found Brother Porter, and chatted with him half an hour, then rode to Rowley and lodged at Captain Jewett's. Jewett 'had rather the House should sit all the year round, than give up an atom of right or privilege. The Governor can't frighten the people with, etc.' . . .
"Sunday. Took a walk to the pasture to see how my horse fared. My little mare had provided for herself, by leaping out of a bare pasture into a neighboring lot of mowing-ground, and had filled herself with grass and water. These are important materials for history, no doubt. My biographer will scarcely introduce my little mare and her adventures in quest of food and water. The children of the house have got a young crow, a sight I never saw before;—the head and bill are monstrous; the legs and claws are long and sprawling. But the young crow and the little mare are objects that will not interest posterity."
I do not agree with you, John. I like to think of you watching the little mare at her stolen breakfast, gravely observing the young crow; later, with a whimsical smile curling the corners of your firm mouth, entering the observations in your diary.
The climate of Boston did not suit Mr. Adams: he longed for his native air of Braintree.
"The complicated cares of my legal and political engagements, the slender diet to which I was obliged to confine myself, the air of the town of Boston, which was not favorable to me, who had been born and passed almost all my life in the country, but especially the constant obligation to speak in public, almost every day for many hours, had exhausted my health, brought on a pain in my breast, and a complaint in my lungs, which seriously threatened my life, and compelled me to throw off a great part of the load of business, both public and private, and return to my farm in the country. Early in the Spring of 1771, I removed my family to Braintree, still holding, however, an office in Boston. The air of my native spot, and the fine breezes from the sea on one side, and the rocky mountains of pine and savin on the other, together with daily rides on horseback and the amusements of agriculture, always delightful to me, soon restored my health in a considerable degree."
Yet still he wondered why he was not stronger. Turning the pages of the diary, we feel no such surprise. He simply overworked himself, continuously and relentlessly. "Now my family is away, I feel no inclination at all, no temptation, to be anywhere but at my office. I am in it by six in the morning, I am in it at nine at night, and I spend but a small space of time in running down to my brother's to breakfast, dinner and tea."