Friday July the 6th 1781.
This morning Dr. Waterhouse came here and told us that Colo. Trumbul1 had arriv’d in Town. I went to the first Bible to see Mr. Bordly, I found Mr. Trumbel there. I din’d at home. Dr. Waterhouse din’d with us; after dinner Colo. Searle and Major Jackson came here; I went and took a walk with Major Jackson and Mr. Dana. I spent the evening and supp’d at Madam Chabanel’s, got home at about 10 o’clock.
From Addison’s Poems, (continued from yesterday.)2
1. John Trumbull, the Revolutionary painter, whom JQA had met in Paris in 1780 just prior to the artist’s departure for London, where he briefly studied under Benjamin West. In Nov. 1780, shortly after his arrival in London, Trumbull was imprisoned on suspicion of treason. He secured his release in June 1781 through the intercession of Charles Fox and Edmund Burke. Trumbull had come to Amsterdam as the fastest route back to America, and there at the request of his father (Gov. Jonathan Trumbull) attempted to obtain a loan for Connecticut through the de Neufvilles and van Staphorsts; he was unsuccessful (The Autobiography of Colonel John Trumbull, Patriot-Artist, 1756–1843, ed. Theodore Sizer, New Haven, 1953, p. 58–74).
2. On the next three pages in the Diary, JQA copied fifty-nine of sixty lines to conclude Addison’s translation of Horace’s Ode III, Book III (Miscellaneous Works in Verse and Prose, 1:159–161).