Friday 17th.

This morning I went to see the tour de fer (as the French call it and the spaniards Tour d’hercule). It is 100 foot in height and perhaps 2000 years old. There is an inscription which I have not seen for I could not go in which runs thus “Marti et Augusto sacrum. Dedicated to Mars and Augustus." Pappa supposes that it was built by Augustus Caesar just after he had routed Brutus, and Cassius, at Phillippi. Pappa, Mr. Dana, Mr. Thaxter and Mr. Allen dined at the Governors1 and at about 7 o clock they came back again. Captn. Trash2 of the Newbury vessel sail’d to day.

1. General Don Pedro Martin Cermeño, governor of the province of Galicia (JA, Diary and Autobiography description begins Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. description ends , 2:409).

2. Probably Philip Trask, captain of the schooner Success, a privateer owned by the Tracy firm and commissioned by a letter of marque on 2 Sept. 1778 (Currier, Newburyport, description begins John J. Currier, History of Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1764-1905, Newburyport, 1906-1909; 2 vols. description ends 1:640).

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Source Project: Adams Papers
Title: Friday 17th.
Author: Adams, John Quincy
Date: 17 December 1779

Reference

Cite as: “Friday 17th.,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/03-01-02-0001-0002-0020. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Diary of John Quincy Adams, vol. 1, November 1779 – March 1786, ed. Robert J. Taylor and Marc Friedlaender. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981, p. 14.]