14th.
I was up late last Night, to finish the fourth book of Horace’s Odes; and found my Eyes, this morning very sore indeed, so that I could not write or read. Mr. Storer,1 Mr. Atkinson,2 and Mr. W. Smith arrived, at about 10 in the morning, and my time was taken up, in going about with them. Visited Mr. Stoughton for the first time: Mrs. Stoughton is by no means fond of this Town. The sudden transition, from London, to so small and retired a Town as this, where she has no intimate acquaintance, must be disagreeable. Solitude, can never constitute a man’s happiness, much less a woman’s. I imagine they will not continue in Town long. Mr. Thaxter, Eliza, and the gentlemen, dined here; I had a thousand Questions to ask, Charles Storer, and forgot three quarters of them, not knowing which to ask first. He brought me, my watch chain, and some Letters.3
1. Charles Storer (1761–1829), distantly related to AA through his father’s second marriage into the Quincy family, went to Europe in 1781 and lived with JA at The Hague in 1782 and in Paris 1782–1783 while serving as an additional secretary to the minister. Storer left the Adamses late in 1783, spending much of his time in England, but kept in contact through a series of letters to JQA during 1784–1785. He returned to America in Nov. 1785 (, 4:127; Storer to AA, 17 Oct. 1782; JA to John Jay, 25 Aug. 1785, LbC; AA2 to JQA, 24 Sept.–1 Oct. 1785, Adams Papers).
2. John Atkinson, who married Elizabeth Storer, daughter of “Deacon” Ebenezer Storer and half-sister of Charles (, 12:213–214; Scrapbook, MHi:Elizabeth Hall Smith Papers).