Saturday. Another fog this morning.
The mosquitoes first troubled me a little last night.
On the river at dusk I hear the toads still, with the bullfrogs.
The black willow, having shed its fuzzy seeds and expanded its foliage, now begins to be handsome, so light and graceful.
The upland fields are already less green where the June-grass is ripening its seeds. They are greenest when only the blade is seen.
In the sorrel-fields, also, what lately was the ruddy, rosy cheek of health, now that the sorrel is ripening and dying, has become the tanned and imbrowned cheek of manhood.
Probably blackbirds were never less numerous along our river than in these years. They do not depend on the clearing of the woods and the cultivation of or chards, etc. Streams and meadows, in which they delight, always existed. Most of the towns, soon after they were settled, were obliged to set a price upon their heads. In 1672, according to the town records of Concord, instruction was given to the selectmen, "That incorigment be given for the destroying of blackbirds and jaies." (Shattuck, page 45.)
Murder will out. I find, in the dry excrement of a fox left on a rock, the vertebrae and talons of a partridge (?) which he has consumed. They are memoires pour servir.
I remember Helen's telling me that John Marston of Taunton told her that he was on board a vessel during the Revolution, which met another vessel, — and, as I think, one hailed the other, — and a French name being given could not be understood, whereupon a sailor, probably aboard his vessel, ran out on the bowsprit and shouted "La Sensible," and that sailor's name was Thoreau.
["La Sensible," was] the vessel in which John Adams was being brought back from or carried out to France. My father has an idea that he stood on the wharf and cried this to the bystanders.]
My father tells me that, when the war came on, my grandfather, being thrown out of business and being a young man, went a-privateering. I find from his Diary that John Adams set sail from Port Louis at L'Orient in the French frigate Sensible, Captain Chavagnes, June 17th, 1779, the Bonhomme Richard, Captain Jones, and four other vessels being in company at first, and the Sensible arrived at Boston the 2d of August.
On the 13th of November following, he set out for France again in the same frigate from Boston, and he says that a few days before the 24th, being at the last date "on the Grand Bank of Newfoundland," "we spoke an American privateer, the General Lincoln, Captain Barnes." If the above-mentioned incident occurred at sea, it was probably on this occasion.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 11, 1853
The mosquitoes first troubled me a little last night. At dusk I hear the toads still, with the bullfrogs. See June 7, 1858 "Mosquitoes quite troublesome here."); June 7, 1854 ("[M]osquitoes are very troublesome in the woods."); June 15, 1860 ("The bullfrogs now commonly trump at night, and the mosquitoes are now really troublesome."); June 16, 1852 ("The sonorous note of bullfrogs is heard a mile off in the river, the loudest sound this evening"). See also June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th . . .")
A partridge which he has consumed. See January 27, 1855 ("What a life is theirs, venturing forth only at night for their prey, ranging a great distance, trusting to pick up a sleeping partridge or a hare, and at home again before morning!”); January 1, 1856 (“In the other direction you trace the retreating steps of the disappointed fox until he has forgotten this and scented some new game, maybe dreams of partridges or wild mice.”); June 25, 1860 ("What an unfailing supply of small game it secures that its excrement should be so generally of fur! ")
The French frigate Sensible sailed from L'Orient, France to Boston, Ma between June 17-August 2, 1779, carrying John Adams and his son, and also the french minister to the U.S., Chevalier Anne-Cesar de La Luzerne. See John Adams Journals. The ship sailed from Boston, MA destination France on November 14, 1779, but a storm damaged the hull and she ended up in Ferrol, Spain on December 8, 1779. John Adams and two suns were traveling with it. see link. From Adam's diary:
Jean Thoreau, grandfather of Henry, born at St. Helier's, Jersey, April, 1754, was a sailor on board the American privateer General Lincoln, November, 1779November 24 1779We were on the Grand Bank of Newfound Land, and about this time, We spoke with an American Privateer, The General Lincoln Captain Barnes. He came on board and our Captain supplied him with some Wood and other Articles he wanted.
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