121Thursday Novr. 6th. 1783. (Adams Papers)
This day, being Term day, we went, with Mr. Jennings, and saw the procession of the Lawyers, and Judges to Westminster Hall; and we saw the four Courts; the Kings Bench, Common Pleas, Chancery, and Exchequer, all sitting. Dined at M: W. Vaughan’s. That is, the beginning of Michaelmas Term, one of four yearly sessions of English courts of law.
122Friday Novr. 7th. (Adams Papers)
In the forenoon I went with M: W. Vaughan; and saw the Pantheon; a place of public entertainment; it is only remarkable for one Room which is very large and elegant. We went also to see the Cathedral of St Paul’s; the largest Protestant Church, extant. It is very magnificent on the outside; but the inside is by no means extraordinary; there is one thing which they say is to be met with no...
123Saturday Novr. 8. 1783. (Adams Papers)
Went with Mr. West to see the Queen’s Palace called Buckingham House; from its having been built by Villiers: Duke of Buckingham; in the first Chamber, are the famous Cartoons of Raphael; which were Painted on Paper to be taken on Tapestry; at Brussels; there are 7. of them; they represented several of the Acts of the apostles; the name of the Painter makes it unnecessary to say, in what...
124Sunday [9th.] (Adams Papers)
Dined at Dr. Jebbs. John Jebb , doctor of medicine, encyclopedic scholar, and a thoroughgoing supporter of America from the outset of the quarrel between England and her colonies. JA described him as a man “for whom I have the highest Esteem; as one of the best Citizens of the little Commonwealth of the just upon Earth” (Caroline Robbins, The Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthman ..., Cambridge,...
125Monday Novr. 10th. (Adams Papers)
Went to the Covent Garden Theatre. King Henry VIII. and the Lord Mayor’s day, or a flight to Lapland; with the Grand Procession. Lord Mayor’s day. The day of the lord mayor of London’s inauguration, held usually every 9 Nov., is marked with a pageant known as the Lord Mayor’s Show. JQA saw Lord Mayor’s Day; or, A Flight from Lapland, a speaking pantomime, originally produced in 1782,...
126Tuesday Novr. 11th. (Adams Papers)
This day the Parliament met for the first Time; the Prince of Wales took his seat in the House of Peers, as duke of Cornwall, the King also made his most gracious speech from the Throne: All the Peers were in their Robes which are scarlet and white; the Kings, and the Prince of Wales’s were of purple velvet. George Augustus Frederick (1762–1830) , Prince Regent, 1811–1820, and afterward King...
127Wednesday Novr. 12th. 1783. (Adams Papers)
Went to the Drury Lane Theatre; the pieces represented were, the West Indian and Fortunatus. The West Indian , London, 1771, by Richard Cumberland; Fortunatus, an unpublished pantomime, by Henry Woodward, originally produced in 1753 ( Biographia Dramatica David Erskine Baker and others, eds., Biographia Dramatica; Or, A Companion to the Play House ... , London, 1764-1812; 3 vols, in 4. ).
128Thursday Novr. 13th. (Adams Papers)
Dined at Mr. J. Johnson. In the evening we went to see the Transactions of the Royal Society; but unluckily we happened to come on a very barren Night: nothing was read, except a dry, unphilosophical account of the late Earthquake in Calabria: after which we went and supp’d with the Club at the London Coffee House. Joshua Johnson (1742–1802) , Maryland merchant, who undertook various...
129Friday Novr. 14th. (Adams Papers)
Dined with Mr. Grierson. In the evening; we went to see Hughes’s Royal Circus, or exercises of equitation, which are not equal to those performed by Astley at Paris which I saw some time agone. Both Charles Hughes and Philip Astley were English equestrian performers who set up rival shows (Raymond Toole-Scott, Circus and Allied Arts: A World Bibliography, 1500–1970, 4 vols., Derby, England,...
130Saturday Novr. 15th. (Adams Papers)
Dined at Mr. West’s. In the evening I went to the Covent Garden Theatre, and saw Douglas, and the Poor Soldier: Mrs. Crawford appeared in the Character of Lady Randolph in Douglas. Douglas , London, 1757, by John Home; The Poor Soldier, a comic opera by John O’Keeffe, first produced on 4 Nov. ( Biographia Dramatica David Erskine Baker and others, eds., Biographia Dramatica; Or, A Companion to...
131Sunday Novr. 16th. (Adams Papers)
Dined at Mr. Hartley’s.
132Monday Novr. 17th. (Adams Papers)
Dined at Mr. W. Vaughan’s: spent the evening at Mr. Fitch’s.
133Tuesday Novr. 18th. (Adams Papers)
Dined at Mr. Oswald’s. Richard Oswald , the British peace commissioner who negotiated and signed the preliminary articles of peace with the United States on 30 Nov. 1782 ( JA, Diary and Autobiography Diary and Autobiography of John Adams , ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols. , 3:81–82 ).
134Thursday Novr. 20th. (Adams Papers)
Dined at Mr. Rogers’s.
135Friday Novr. 21st. (Adams Papers)
Dined with Mr. Fitch at the St. Albans Tavern. The Tavern, on St. Albans Street, Pall Mall, was renowned for political and fashionable dinners and meetings ( Wheatley, London Past and Present Henry B. Wheatley, London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions , London, 1891; 3 vols. , 1:12).
136Sunday. Novr. 23d. (Adams Papers)
Dined with Mr. Champion. Probably Richard Champion , a Bristol ceramist and close friend of American Commissioner Henry Laurens after his release from the Tower. In 1782 Burke had Champion appointed to government office, in which capacity he established contact with other Americans. In 1784 he anonymously published Considerations on the Present Situation of Great Britain and the United States...
137Monday Novr. 24th. (Adams Papers)
Genl. Roberdeau, and his Son dined with us. In the Evening, we went with Mr. West to the Academy of Painting sculpture and Architecture: we first went into a Room where there was a naked man standing and about 25 or 30 students taking his figure, either in drawing, or in plaister: afterwards we went and heard a very good Lecture upon Anatomy: these Lectures are Read every monday evening. After...
138Tuesday Novr. 25th. (Adams Papers)
Went to the Covent Garden Theatre, and saw the Castle of Andalusia, with the Devil upon two Sticks. Castle of Andalusia, by John O’Keeffe, with music by Samuel Arnold, first performed in 1782; and Samuel Foote’s highly successful comedy first produced in 1768 ( Biographia Dramatica David Erskine Baker and others, eds., Biographia Dramatica; Or, A Companion to the Play House ... , London,...
139Wednesday Novr. 26th. (Adams Papers)
Went again to the Covent Garden Theatre, and saw the Magic Picture with the Quaker. The Magic Picture , London, 1783, by Henry Bate Dudley; The Quaker , London, 1777, by Charles Dibdin ( Biographia Dramatica David Erskine Baker and others, eds., Biographia Dramatica; Or, A Companion to the Play House ... , London, 1764-1812; 3 vols, in 4. ; DNB Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds., The...
140Saturday Novr. 29th. (Adams Papers)
In the morning at about 9 o’clock, set out for Richmond which is 10. miles from London, and said to be the most Beautiful Spot in England, and perhaps in Europe. It is upon a hill, which Commands a vast plain in which Plain the River Thames runs winding about for a great ways in the midst of the Meadows, which even at this Time are covered with verdure. Returned to Town to Dine. The purpose of...
141Sunday. Novr. 30th. (Adams Papers)
Dined at Mr. Bingham’s.
142[December 1783] (Adams Papers)
This evening I went with Mr. West to the Academy of Painting &c. and had the same entertainment as that of which I spoke last Monday. This day my father dined out; in the evening I went to the Drury Lane Theatre, had the Beaux Stratagem with the Ladies Frolick. George Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Strategem , London, 1707; The Ladies’ Frolick , London, 1770, by James Love, pseudonym for James Dance (...
143Monday Decr. 1st. 1783. (Adams Papers)
This evening I went with Mr. West to the Academy of Painting &c. and had the same entertainment as that of which I spoke last Monday.
144Tuesday Decr. 2d. (Adams Papers)
This day my father dined out; in the evening I went to the Drury Lane Theatre, had the Beaux Stratagem with the Ladies Frolick. George Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Strategem , London, 1707; The Ladies’ Frolick , London, 1770, by James Love, pseudonym for James Dance ( Biographia Dramatica David Erskine Baker and others, eds., Biographia Dramatica; Or, A Companion to the Play House ... , London,...
145Friday Decr. 5th. 1783. (Adams Papers)
In the evening I went to the Covent Garden Theatre, and saw the Merchant of Venice , with Love a la Mode ; a young Lady appeared for the first Time she play’d upon any Stage in the part of Portia . Love à la Mode , London, 1793, by Charles Macklin, first produced in 1760 ( Biographia Dramatica David Erskine Baker and others, eds., Biographia Dramatica; Or, A Companion to the Play House ... ,...
146Saturday. Decr. 6th. 1783. (Adams Papers)
Dined at Mr. W. Vassal’s at Clapham. William Vassall , once a prominent Bostonian, now a loyalist refugee, whom JA later described as “one of my old friends and clients ... a man of letters and virtues, without one vice that I ever knew or suspected, except garrulity” ( Sibley-Shipton, Harvard Graduates John Langdon Sibley and Clifford K. Shipton, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard...
147[August 1784] (Adams Papers)
Left London, travelled to Sittingbourne. 43. miles. In the latter part of Dec. 1783, JA and JQA traveled from London to Bath via Oxford, but were unable to remain long at the famous spa because of the unsettling news that the Dutch loan which JA had obtained the previous summer had been overdrawn. Although JA ’s health had improved little during his short stay in England, he and JQA left...
148Sunday August 8th. [1784]. (Adams Papers)
Left London, travelled to Sittingbourne. 43. miles. In the latter part of Dec. 1783, JA and JQA traveled from London to Bath via Oxford, but were unable to remain long at the famous spa because of the unsettling news that the Dutch loan which JA had obtained the previous summer had been overdrawn. Although JA ’s health had improved little during his short stay in England, he and JQA left...
149[9th.] (Adams Papers)
Monday arrived at Dover and sailed for Calais. The trip from London to Paris is reported in fuller detail by AA2 ( Jour. and Corr. Journal and Correspondence of Miss Adams, Daughter of John Adams,... edited by Her Daughter [Caroline Amelia (Smith) de Windt], New York and London, 1841-[1849]; 3 vols. , 1:7–14).
150[10th.] (Adams Papers)
Tuesday 5. A. M. arrived at Calais, in the afternoon took Post, and went as far as Boulogne, 4. Posts.