Casement’s black reputation

Roger Casement - an Irish-born British diplomat, human rights activist, and, ultimately, an Irish nationalist - was executed for treason exactly a century ago today. His journals - which revealed him as a promiscuous homosexual - were successfully employed by the British government to blacken Casement’s name and undermine calls for clemency. However, subsequently, the diaries were kept secret by the government, leading some biographers and many others to believe they were a forgery. It was not until 2002 that an independent forensic examination proved, finally, they were genuine.

Casement was born in 1864 in Sandymount, near Dublin, the youngest son of an Ulster protestant and soldier. The family moved frequently, but both parents died young and the children became dependent on relatives. Casement went to live with his uncle in County Antrim, and was schooled until 1880, when he went to Liverpool to live with an aunt. After working in a shipping office, he signed up, aged 19, as a purser on board a ship heading for the Congo. The following year, he returned to stay in the Congo working as a surveyor on a rail project. There he met the writer Joseph Conrad and also the explorer (and sculptor) Herbert Ward who he then accompanied on a tour of the US.

Casement returned to Ireland where he took a job in the British customs department, before, in 1895, gaining a first consul appointment in Portuguese East Africa. Thereafter, he took similar posts in Angola (1898-1900), Congo Free State (1901-1904) and Brazil (1906-1911). He gained international recognition, though, for a report (published in 1904), commissioned by the Foreign Office, into the state of government in the Congo, which revealed atrocious cruelty in the exploitation of native labour by white traders - for more on this see Conrad, Hottot and the Congo. And, after producing a similarly disturbing report in 1912 on the Putumayo River region in Peru, he was awarded a knighthood.

Ill-health forced Casement to return to Ireland in 1912, and he retired from the British consular service in the summer of the following year. Thereafter, his views on Irish nationalism having strengthened, he helped form the Irish Volunteers. In 1914, he went to the US promoting the cause and seeking funds, and there, at the outbreak of the war, began scheming to gain German support for an Irish revolt. This led him to travel to Germany, seeking to recruit a brigade from Irish prisoners-of-war captured in the first months of the war. However, German support proved minimal, and his plans never materialised in any substantial way. The few German munitions he did manage to secure for shipment to Ireland were intercepted by the British; and he, himself, was arrested a few days after being transported to Ireland by a German submarine.

Casement was charged with treason, sabotage and espionage against the Crown, and was remanded, on suicide watch, at Brixton prison. The prosecution had some legal trouble arguing its case, and resorted to circulating extracts from Casement’s diaries, which contained details of his (illegal) homosexual activities, to influence those calling for clemency (among which were notables such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and George Bernard Shaw). Casement was hanged at Pentonville prison at 9am on 3 August 1916. Further information is available at Wikipedia, BBC, Stephen Stratford’s website, Irish Historical Mysteries. The Times report of the execution is also available at Stratford’s website.

Casement, it seems, was an intermittent diarist, keeping an account of himself from time to time in pocket diaries (with space for each day of the year) or cash agenda note-books. The term ‘Black Diaries ’ was coined by by Peter Singleton-Gates and Maurice Girodias in their 1959 book of the same name. Some 20 years earlier (in 1936), though, William J. Maloney had published a work claiming that he had proved the diaries used to blacken Casement’s name had been a forgery - something many people had people believed since his execution. It was not until 2002, following a detailed and independent forensic examination of the diaries, that it was proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that they were genuine.

The same year, Belfast Press, brought out Jeffrey Dudgeon’s Roger Casement: The Black Diaries with a study of his background, sexuality, and Irish political life. It contains Casement’s diaries from 1903, 1910 and 1911. This was the first time, the Black Diaries, with all of Casement’s promiscuous thoughts and actions laid bare, had been published. Dudgeon includes a large amount of additional information, in fact creating more of a biography supplemented by a few chapters on the diaries. The book runs to 650 pages less than half of which are diary texts, and the diary extracts themselves are heavily adulterated with Dudgeon’s notes in bold font enclosed by square brackets, often doubling or more Casement’s own words.

Some pages of Roger Casement’s Diaries - 1910: The Black and the White edited by Roger Sawyer can be read at Googlebooks (Pimlico, 1997). Extracts from One Bold Deed of Open Treason: The Berlin Diary of Roger Casement 1914-1916 (Irish Academic Press, 2016) can be read at The Irish Times. The following extracts, though, are from Dudgeon’s The Black Diaries (some pages of which can be previewed at Amazon).

20 November 1911
‘. . . Stopped at Mucuà at 4 p.m. and saw two rubber trees in tapping. Young Cearense of Sobral still there - splendid stern, thighs and testeminhos - a lovely boy. . . Fonseca at Santa Theresa higher  up - it is Peruvian territory. [On blotter] Got some mails by “Manco” today at 10.30 a.m. meeting “Hamburgo” on her way up . . . Saw fine Indian boy in Janissius canoe that brought him over. A big strong fellow - nice face and great thick stiff one which he felt often under grey pants.’

21 November 1911
‘Arr. Nazareth at 10 and after some hours there up to Marius Levy’s where shipped 65 cases rubber (101⁄2 tons weight) . . . Back to Nazareth - young Italian, stout but very nice face, huge stern, thighs and immense big one, long, thick, soft, he fingered often and one could see it hanging down 6” or 7” inches long - through very thick trousers too. Left Nazareth at 5 with “Le Journal” from Belém. Up to 5 Oct. giving Italy-Turkey war and strike in Ireland. At union and mouth of Javari at 9.30 and on to Leticia.’

22 November 1911
‘At Leticia since 11.30 p.m. Left only at 7.30 a.m. taking up Peruvian officer and family and enormous mass of rubbish of furniture including 5 jerrys! Cold is again very bad. Left letters to Tom, Gallwey, O’Reilly and Bernardino. . . Clock on church is painted strip of canvas always at 11.45 a.m.! . . . Met “Elisa” and got papers - including a “Truth” with part of Paredes’ summing up. José came and asked me for photo in Iquitos - looking lovely and then at 8.30 for cigarette papers and later I called and pulled mine and asked for water. Also with Pilot’s boy.’

23 November 1911
‘Lovely day. We are steaming very well and expect to be in Iquitos before 10 a.m. tomorrow. Read letters and drafted a long despatch to F.O. giving as my opinion the unlikelihood of Peruvian Government acting seriously . . . lots of logs still - often striking them hard. At 8 p.m. a huge one nearly swept away a man and case of rubber. . . Return to Iquitos.’

24 November 1911
‘Arr. 9.55. Antonio Cruz came on wharf and will come Sunday 8 a.m. Saw some big ones on Indian boys and then up ladder at top a young Spaniard with huge soft big one under blue pants. At my corner the lovely 6 foot young Inca policeman and his up at full half cock! Simply enormous, all down left thigh and thick too - fully 71⁄2 and huge testeminhos too. I now am sure of the Indians! Many letters from Mrs Green and others. Saw the Cholo policeman again going to lunch and it was huge, half down his thigh and he 6 foot and lovely. Then the small policeman passed and his too enormous. Then Paredes young Editor also very big. José came at 3.15 looking very nice and it was half up and showed big. Gave 5/8 for Spanish boo. Saw the young policeman while talking to José and it was simply huge. Both pure Cholos.’

Arctic Sea adventure

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famous around the world for his fictional creation Sherlock Holmes, died 90 years ago today. As a young man, still studying medicine, he sailed for six months in the Arctic seas on a whaling ship - and kept a detailed dairy. The experience would later enrich several of his stories, not least The Adventure of Black Peter in which Holmes solves a murder committed by harpoon. A full facsimile copy of the diary, complete with illustrations, has been published by The British Library.

Doyle was born in 1859 in Edinburgh into a prosperous Irish family. His father was an artist and a chronic alcoholic, while his mother had a passion for books and storytelling. Aged nine, he was sent to a Catholic boarding school at Stonyhurst, Lancashire, where he remained for seven years. Later he would write about the place as being run on medieval principles, favouring the threat of corporal punishment and ritual humiliation over providing compassion and warmth. On leaving school, it seems, he added one of his given names - Conan - to his surname Doyle. 

In 1875, Conan Doyle was sent for a year to a Jesuit school in Austria partly to improve his German. From 1876, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh but also botany at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. He started writing short stories during this period, his first  - The Mystery of Sasassa Valley - being published in 1879. The same year he also published a first academic article, Gelsemium as a Poison, in the British Medical Journal. In 1880, Conan Doyle sailed with the whaler SS Hope in the Arctic seas for six months, acting as ship’s surgeon. And, after graduating, he sailed to the West African coast with the SS Mayumba.

In the early 1880s, Conan Doyle tried to set up a medical practice with a colleague in Plymouth, but it failed, and then he launched another in Southsea on his own but this no more successful. He completed his Doctor of Medicine in 1885, and subsequently took up studying and practising ophthalmology - but again failed to attract clients. By then, though, he had published his first story feating Sherlock Holmes - A Study in Scarlet - and its success encouraged him to write further stories. In 1893, tired of his hero, Conan Doyle killed off Holmes, hoping to concentrate on more serious writing, but a public outcry led to Holmes’ resurrection. Conan Doyle wrote various other books: fiction such as The Lost World, and non-fiction such as The Great Boer War (justifying British involvement). He was a keen sportsmen taking part, at various times, in amateur football, cricket, boxing, golf and billiards. In 1885, he married Louisa Hawkins, and they had two children. She died young, and Holmes then married Jean Elizabeth Leckie with whom he had three further children.

Conan Doyle ran twice unsuccessfully for parliament. In-between attempts, he was knighted by King Edward VII in the 1902 Coronation Honours. He was a fervent advocate of justice, and personally investigated two cases which led to convicted men being released. It was partially as a result of one of these cases that the Court of Criminal Appeal was established in 1907. He was also involved in the campaign to reform the Congo Free State, and, unsuccessfully, tried to save Roger Casement from the death penalty (see Casement’s black reputation). In later life, after the death of his beloved mother, he became very interested in spiritualism, and was friends with the US magician Harry Houdini, believing he had supernatural powers. Conan Doyle died on 7 July 1930. Further information is available from the official Arthur Conan Doyle website, Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, or the Baker Street fanzine.

For half a year or so, while on his voyage through the Arctic seas, Conan Doyle kept a daily diary. He retained it throughout his life, and it was eventually passed down through his heirs until, in 2004, it came up for sale (with sundry other items) at Christie’s in London. The journal, with neat handwriting and many illustrations, was described as consisting of more than 150 pages in two notebooks bound in marbled boards. Although the diary was not sold at the time, the Conan Doyle Estate has, since, allowed it to be published. In 2012, both the British Library in the UK and University of Chicago Press in the US brought out a full colour facsimile of the contents: Dangerous Work: Diary of an Arctic Adventure, as edited by Jon Lellenberg and Daniel Stashower. The book also includes a complete and annotated transcript of the diary and several non-fiction and fiction pieces based on Conan Doyle’s experiences during the voyage (including a Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of Black Peter; and a ghost story set in the Arctic, The Captain of the Polestar).

The publisher says: ‘With humour and grace, Conan Doyle provides a vivid account of a long-vanished way of life at sea. His careful detailing of the ‘murderous harvest’ in the Arctic seas affords a rare and unflinching account of the latter days of the British whaling industry.’ And Lellenberg adds: ‘In this diary’s entries, we see the young medical student step outside the classroom into settings of high adventure and great peril, finding his way among hard men whose skill and daring he came to respect greatly, and at the end of the voyage encountering a direct link to the first tale about Sherlock Holmes that he would write six years later.’ Reviews with extracts can be found at NPR and The Best of Sherlock Holmes. Here are several of those extracts.

4 April 1880
‘I fell into the Arctic Ocean three times today, but luckily someone was always near to pull me out. The danger in falling in is that with a heavy swell on as there is now, you may be cut in two pretty well by two pieces of ice coming together and ripping you. I got several drags but was laid up in the evening as all my clothes were in the engine room drying. By the way as an instance of abstraction of mind after skinning a seal today I walked away with the two hind flippers in my hand, leaving my mittens on the ice. Some of our hands work very well, while others, mostly Shetlanders with many honourable exceptions, shirk their work detestably. It shows what a man is made of, this work, as we are often far from the ship away from the Captain’s eye with a couple of miles drag, and a man can skulk if he will. Colin the mate is a great power in the land, energetic & hard working. I heard him tell a man today he would club him if he didn’t work harder. I saw the beggars often walk pat a fine fat seal to kill a poor little “Toby” or newly pupped one in order to have less weight to drag. The Captain sits at the masthead all day, looking out with his glass, for where they lie thickest.’

12 April 1880
‘Buried poor old Andrew this morning. Union Jack was hoisted half mast high. He was tied up in canvas sack with a bag of old iron tied to his feet, and the Church of England burial service was read over him. Then the stretcher on which he was lying was tilted over and the old man went down feet foremost with hardly a splash. There was a bubble or two and a gurgle and that was the end of old Andrew. He knows the great secret now. I should think he would be flattened out of all semblance to humanity before he reached the bottom, or rather he would never reach the bottom but hang suspended half way down like Mahomet’s coffin, when the weight of the iron was neutralized. The Captain & I agree that on these occasions three cheers should be given as the coffin disappears, not in levity, but as a genial hearty fare-thee-well wherever you are.’

26 June 1880
‘Nothing had been seen all day and I had gone down to the cabin about 10 o’clock when I heard a sort of bustle on deck. Then I heard the Captain’s voice from the masthead “Lower away the two waist boats!” I rushed into the mates’ berth and gave the alarm, Colin was dressed but the second mate rushed on deck in his shirt with his trousers in his hand. When I got my head above the hatchway the very first thing I saw was the whale shooting its head out of the water and gamboling about at the other side of a large ‘sconce’piece of ice. It was a beautiful night, with hardly a ripple on the deep green water. In jumped the crews into their boats, and the officers of the watch looked that their guns were primed and ready, then they pushed off and the two long whale boats went crawling away on their wooden legs one to one side of the bit of ice, the other to the other. Carner had hardly got up to the ice when the whale came up again about forty yards in front of the boat, throwing almost its whole body out of the water, and making the foam fly. There was a chorus of “Now, Adam - Now’s your chance!” from the line of eager watchers on the vessel‘s side. But Adam Carner, a grizzled and weatherbeaten harpooner knows better. The whale’s small eye is turned towards him and the boat lies as motionless as the ice behind it. But now it has shifted, its tail is towards them - Pull, boys, pull! Out shoots the boat from the ice - will the fish dive before he can get up to it? That is the question in every mind. He is nearing it, and it still lies motionless - nearer yet and nearer. Now he is standing up to his gun and has dropped his oar - “Three strokes, boys”! he says as he turns his quid in his cheek, and then there is a bang and a foaming of waters and a shouting, and then up goes the little red flag in Carner’s boat and the whale line runs out merrily.’

4 August 1880
‘Was called up about 11 PM by the Captain to see a marvellous sight. Never hope to see anything like it again. The sea was simply alive with great hunchback whales, rather a rare variety, you could have thrown a biscuit onto 200 of them, and as far as you could see there was nothing but spoutings and great tails in the air. Some were blowing under the bowsprit, sending the water on to the forecastle, and exciting our newfoundland tremendously. They are 60-80 feet long, and have extraordinary heads with a hanging pouch like a toad’s from sheer underjaw. They yield about 3 tons of very inferior oil, and are hard to capture so that they are not worth pursuing. We lowered away a boat and fired an old loose harpoon into one which went away with a great splash. They differ from finner whales in having white underfins and tail. Some of them gave a peculiar whistle when they blew, which you could hear a couple of miles off.’

10 August 1880
‘Up at 8 AM to see the land bearing WSW on the Starboard bow. Half a gale blowing and the old Hope steaming away into a head sea like Billy. The green grass on shore looks very cool and refreshing to me after nearly 6 months never seeing it, but the houses look revolting. I hate the vulgar hum of men and would like to be back at the floes again.

Passed the skerry light, and came down to Lerwick but did not get into the harbour as we are in a hurry to catch the tide at Peterhead, so there goes all my letters, papers and everything else. A girl was seen at the lighthouse waving a handkerchief and all hands were called to look at her. The first woman we have seen for half a year.’

Postscript. In 2014, Christie’s did sell a manuscript journal kept by Conan Doyle. It was listed as ’Baby’s Book - 1909–1916’ with 48 pages, 32 of them blank, and sold for $7,500. Here is how Christie’s described its content: A loving journal of the birth and early growth of three of Conan Doyle’s five children, Denis Percy Stewart (17 March 1909 – 9 March 1955), Adrian Malcolm (19 November 1910 – 3 June 1970). And Jean Lena Annette (1912-1997). We see not just the doting parent, but the novelist's eye for the telling hints of character and the story-teller's pleasure in amusing anecdotes. Most of the journal is devoted to Denis: “Baby was born March 17th about 6 p.m.,” it begins. “St. Patrick’s Day 1909. He was christened Denis Stewart Percy Conan Doyle. April 17th... Began to crow a little – googa noises – when about one month old.... Aug. 3. In splendid form. Developed a very rouguish laugh. More alert.” Two years later Doyle notes that baby Denis “showed some curious characteristics.” When he’s “had enough of anyone or anything he always said Ta Ta. ‘Ta Ta, man!’ To the doctor…and so on.... He is a remarkable mimic, taking off the exact note & tone. He should have a very clear ear for music.” Another child now makes an appearance in the journal: “Little Adrian (3 months old) weighs 10 lbs 6 ounces which is just the same as Denis at the same age.” The interaction between Denis, Adrian and Doyle’s youngest, Jean Lena Annette (referred to only as Baby in the journal) make for some amusing entries: “His mother having reproached Denis by saying that Adrian & Baby took their medicine well, he said ‘Brave souls!’” Denis’s wit comes through in this “Story of Dennis [ca. 1916]. He pretended all day to be the German Emperor. On being told that I would be angry he said, ‘Who is he? A common Doyle!’” 

In an entry form about 1916, Doyle records that “Adrian asked if God was listening to his conversation. On being told that he was he said, ‘Well, it’s very rude of him.’ Baby who had quarreled with Adrian but who had to include him in [her] prayers said, ‘God bless horrid Adrian.’” Another theological query (from which child is unclear) closes the journal: “‘Would Christ play cricket.’ ‘Yes, if it would give pleasure.’ ‘I wonder if he could bowl Googlies.’”

Conrad, Hottot and the Congo

One hundred years ago today (19 August), the Belgian government finally approved the annexation of Congo Free State - the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo - from Leopold II, the king of Belgium. During the previous 20 years or so, some 10 million Congolese had died because of ruthless exploitation for rubber production. The international outrage, which had led to the annexation, was partly stoked by Joseph Conrad’s famous novel, Heart of Darkness, based on a journey he took in 1890. Conrad kept a diary of that trip. There are also diaries by a French explorer, Robert Hottot, travelling in the Congo Free State in 1908. Much more recently, of course, Che Guevara kept a diary of his exploits in the country.

In 1876, a few years after his famous search for Dr Livingstone (see online diary text at Project Gutenberg), Henry Morton Stanley undertook some exploration for Belgium’s king Leopold II who was keen to colonise an area of Africa which would become the Congo. Professing humanitarian objectives, Leopold then managed to play off various European rivals against each other and formally acquire the territory for himself at the Conference of Berlin in 1885. Thereafter, it was a corporate state - he called it Congo Free State - privately controlled by him through a dummy non-governmental organisation, Association Internationale Africaine. For the next two decades, the state was mercilessly exploited for rubber production to meet a growing demand for car tyres. Wikipedia’s history, of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, explains that an army called the Force Publique (FP) would cut off the limbs of the Congolese to help enforce rubber quotas.

The appalling situation in Congo Free State began to attract international criticism, not least from writers such as Mark Twain and Joseph Conrad, and eventually led to an important report in 1904 by the Irish/British diplomat Roger Casement. He estimated that the population had been decimated by three million because of indiscriminate war, starvation, reduction of births and tropical diseases, (while other estimates suggest that around 10 million Congolese died in this period). Casement’s report also led to the arrest and punishment of white officials, and ultimately - on 19 August 1908, one hundred years ago - to the Belgian government agreeing to annex the territory. A treaty to that effect was signed the following November. The territory was renamed Belgian Congo and administered by the Belgian parliament until independence in 1960.

Conrad went to Congo Free State in 1890, and used his experiences there for a novella, Heart of Darkness, first published in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1899 as a three part serial. However, earlier he had published The Congo Diary, which in modern editions is often coupled with Heart of Darkness. Although the novella is freely available online at several sites (such as Ria Press), The Congo Diary is not. Some pages are available at Googlebooks, but thanks to Rod McLaren and his Rodcorp blog for providing a few extracts and relating them to Heart of Darkness. He says that stylistically, the staccato sentences of The Congo Diary are ‘the opposite of the elliptic, questing prose’ of Conrad’s later Heart of Darkness , but that it’s ‘an important precursor in content and emotion’.

A French explorer, A. Robert Hottot, also a diarist, travelled to Congo Free State three times in 1906, 1907 and 1908, the year Belgium finally acted to annex the territory from its king. Hottot died young in 1939, but had moved to Oxford in 1932 and had become a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. His papers, including diaries, and many fabulous photographs are held by Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, which has an online exhibition about the man. One of the online photographs shows two pages from his 1908 diary, in which Hottot describes the measurement of the local Kango people (pygmies) at Lake Tumba and lists objects he’s collected: three women’s belts, nine units of the local copper currency, and forty poisoned arrows.

Sixty years later, a diarist of a very different ilk would head for Belgian Congo - Che Guevara. His Bolivian diary was in the news a few weeks ago (see Che’s Last Days), and The Motorcycle Diaries were made famous by a recent film. But he also wrote a diary about his time in Africa - The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo. There’s quite a lot about Che’s time in the Congo on Wikipedia; The Guardian provided some extracts prior to the book’s belated publication in 2001; a few pages are viewable on Amazon; and etext.org has a longish review. Also, BBC world affairs correspondent Mark Doyle followed in Che’s footsteps and made a programme about his trip.

Diary briefs

Flaubert’s travel diary sells for €537,880 - Sotheby’s, The Guardian

WWI nurse’s diary sold for £11,200 - Hansons, Daily Mail

The Roy Strong Diaries 1988-2003 - Orion Books, Daily Mail

Diary of a Wartime Affair - Penguin, The Telegraph

The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles - University of Illinois Press (see also Internet Archive)

The Diaries of Vivienne Westwood - Serpent’s Tail, i-D

Lil Wayne’s Gone ’Til November - Blink Publishing, Vulture, GQ, The New Yorker

The diaries of Ivan Serov - The New York Times, World Jewish Congress, The Times of Israel

Diary evidence in Libya HIV scandal - Expatica

Diaries of Indian scientist go online -  The Times of India

POW diary donated to Holocaust museum - Chicago Tribune

Ascension diary from 1726 - British Journal of Photography

Uk refuses to hand over Casement diaries - Independent.ie

Himmler’s war diaries to be published - Deutsche Welle, Daily Mail

Eva Hesse’s diaries - Yale University Press, The Art Newspaper

The Girl Guide who met Hitler - Bridport News, The Telegraph

Teenage diary used in prosecution - Wales Online, Elite Daily

New Kawaguchi diary found - The Asahi Shimbun

Asbestos concerns of Parliament engineer - The Telegraph

The Dutch Anne Frank - The Times of Israel, Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Legal battle over diary of air stewardess - Daily Mail

Diaries of spy and JFK assassination - Regnery Publishing, Daily Mail

The Diary Review’s tenth birthday

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the launch of The Diary Review. During its ten years, the column has included extracts from the diaries of over 800 diarists. The Diary Review, And so made significant, and The Diary Junction together can claim to provide the internet’s most extensive and comprehensive online resource for information about, and links to, diary texts.

A list of the 450 or so diarists written about during the first five years (May 2008 - April 2013) was published on the column’s five year anniversary, and can be found here. Below can be found a similar list for the second five years (May 2013 - April 2018) covering some 390 diarists.

Copy any name into the Blogger search box (above) to access the article(s). All the articles are also tagged with keywords (below right) by century, country, and subject matter.

The Diary Review diarists: May 20013 - April 2018 (most recent first)

Raja Ravi Varma; Richard Rogers; Alan Clark; Ethel Turner; Albrecht Dürer; William Sydney Clements; Kathleen Scott; Francis Lieber; Reginald Marsh; Jean-François de Galaup de La Pérouse; Frank Wedekind; Gilles de Gouberville; Thomas Creevey; Hubert Parry; Thomas Gyll; John Quincy Adams; Cotton Mather; Gideon Welles; John Knox; Edward Stanley; Douglas Haig; Josephus Daniels; Dorothy Mackellar; Thomas Hardy; Simone de Beauvoir; Alfred Edgar Coppard; Peggy Ashcroft; John Newton; Arthur C. Clarke; Richard Crossman; Ezra Stiles; Harry Kessler; Tina Brown; Joseph Farrington; John Rupert Colville; Patrick Blackett; Marie Belloc; Hermann Ludwig von Löwenstern; Ida Tarbell; Iris Origo; Andrey Kolmogorov; Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Astrid Lindgren; Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara; Jim Elliot; R.D. Laing; Le Corbusier; Thomas Raikes; Horace Walpole; André Hurault de Maisse; Henry L. Stimson; Tim Dixon; John MacGavock Grider; James Evershed Agate; Henry Sewell; Bruce Lockhart; Hugh Dalton; Galeazzo Ciano; William Seward Burroughs; Earl Silas Tupper; George Kemp; Karl Ristikivi; Gilberto de Mello Freyre; John Dee; Henry D. Thoreau; Philip Carteret; Elisha Mitchell; Andrei Tarkovsky; James Meade; Julian Huxley; Frithjof Schuon; John Dearman Birchall; Mary Thorp; Peter Fleming; John F. Kennedy; Theodore M. Hesburgh; Alastair Campbell; Carl Linnaeus; Marianne Fortescue; Charles Brooke; Ayub Khan; Elizabeth Grant; John L. Ransom; Phebe Orvis; William Joseph O’Neill Daunt; Friedrich von Holstein; Charles McMoran Wilson; Barbara Bodichon; Lady Minto; Arthur Graeme West; Maurice Hankey; Wilhelm Reich; Lady Aberdeen; Johannes Burchardus; Richard E. Byrd; Wilhelm Bleek; Waguih Ghali; Wilford Woodruff; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Andy Warhol; Heinrich Hertz; Isabelle Eberhardt; Anna Howard Shaw; Lou Andreas-Salomé; Carl Rogers; Franz Schubert; Jeffrey Amherst; Anthony Eden; Aldo Leopold; Sandford Fleming; Zorina Gray; Christian Daniel Rauch; Thomas Gray; Gabrielle West; Leonid Brezhnev; Ivan Chistyakov; Thomas Dooley; Juho Kusti Paasikivi; Natsume Soseki; Ira Gershwin; Aleksander Rodchenko; Seán Ó Ríordáin; George McClellan; Charles de Foucauld; Frederick Charles Cavendish; Harold Nicolson; King Kalakaua; J. R. Ackerley; Thomas Herbert; Harry Houdini; John Stevens; William Lambarde; Joseph Goebbels; François de Bassompierre; David Kim Hempleman-Adams; David Gascoyne; Benjamin Banneker; Václav Havel; Mary Astor; Jim Henson; Charles Ritchie; Maurice Benyovszky; Siegfried Sassoon; Samuel Pepys; John Evelyn; Bret Harte; John Flamsteed; Bertolt Brecht; Roger Casement; James Melville; Raymond Priestley; Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr.; Clifford Odets; Gertrude Bell; Wanda Gág; Ingeborg Bachmann; Henry Arnold; Rider Haggard; Joseph Martin Kraus; Sarah Stamford; George Sand; Allen Ginsberg; Reader Bullard; Jerzy Feliks Urman; Eric Morecambe; Eleanor Coppola; William Dowsing; Neil Campbell; Charlotte Brontë; Richard Harding Davis; Evelyn Waugh; William Godwin; John Fowles; Roger Black; Edward Weston; Alexis Babine; Alasdair Maclean; Peter Maxwell Davies; William Bagshaw Stevens; Peter Clark; André Michaux; John Sarsfield Casey; Robin Cook; Hugo Ball; Clare Short; Thomas Robert Malthus; George Adamson; Romain Rolland; Ralph Jackson; Benjamin Haydon; Rudyard Kipling; Benjamin Franklin; Harold Shipman; Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff; Philip Henslowe; Anthony Powell; Vasily Grossman; Kenneth Williams; Jean Sibelius; Rainer Maria Rilke; Sigmund Freud; Jean-Martin Charcot; Polly Coon; Robert Benchley; Zygmunt Bauman; Henry Agard Wallace; Louis David Riel; Robertson Davies; Ezra Pound; John Adams; James Hannington; Jonathan Swift; Aleister Crowley; William J. Hardee; Edith Cavell; François Mauriac; Harman Blennerhassett; Thomas Mitchell; Ivan Maisky; Cecil Beaton; Henry Newcome; Oliver Sacks; Houston Stewart Chamberlain; James Tiptree; James Calhoun; Roy Strong; Thomas De Quincey; Michelangelo Antonioni; Alison Hargreaves; William Jackson Hooker; Edward John Eyre; Richard Henry Dana Jr.; Robert Hooke; George Templeton Strong; Lewis Carroll; Timothy Garton Ash; Bill Haley; Henry Crabb Robinson; John Milton Hay; Ki no Tsurayuki; Victor Trumper; Robert Earl Henri; William Whiteway; Ma Thanegi; William Gavin; James Naylor; Daniel Edgecombe; William Tomkinson; John William Horsley; W. B. Yeats; Thomas Hearne; King George V; George Allardice Riddell; Joshua Lederberg; Victor Hugo; James Boswell; John Olander; Tony Simmonds; Joan Strange; Vera Britain; Naomi Aitchison; Frances Partridge; Eva Braun; John Lowe; Kim Malthe-Bruun; Denton Welch; Leopold Tyrmand; Barclay Fox; Hans Fallacy; Malcolm X; Abigail Bailey; Patricia Highsmith; Ayn Rand; Thomas Merton; David Lodge; J. G. 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Cotton Mather, You Dog

‘Towards three a Clock in the Night, as it grew towards Morning of this Day, some unknown Hands, threw a fired Granado into the Chamber where my Kinsman lay . . . the Fuse was violently shaken out upon the Floor, without firing the Granado. When the Granado was taken up, there was found a Paper so tied with String about the Fuse, that it might out-Live the breaking of the Shell, which had these words in it; Cotton Mather, You Dog, Dam you: I’ll inoculate you with this, with a Pox to you.’ This is taken from the diary of the Puritan minister Cotton Mather who died 290 years ago today. He was a prolific and influential writer - his diary details exhaustive daily devotions as well as fearful instruction of his children - who was both a believer in old customs (such as witchcraft) and the application of scientific knowledge (for example, inoculation against diseases such as smallpox).

Mather was born in Boston in 1663 into a prominent family of Puritan ministers. He entered Harvard aged only 12, having sufficient knowledge already of Latin and Greek, and received his M.A.(from the hands of his father, who was president of the college) aged 18. He was formally ordained in 1685, becoming a colleague of his father at North Church, Boston. There he served as pastor in his father’s absences and after his father’s death in 1723. He was a prolific writer, and was well known for his books, such as Magnalia Christi Americana (1702) a miscellany of materials on the ecclesiastical history of New England. Mather became a highly influential religious leader, and he set Puritan standards for several generations to come. He was a friend of some of the judges charged with hearing the Salem witch trials. Moreover, he was an ambassador for the colony’s interests at the courts of James II and William III when its original charter was being renegotiated. He also had some influence in science, having conducted experiments with plant hybridisation and supported smallpox inoculation, and was elected a member of the Royal Society in London. He married thrice and fathered at least 15 children, although only two survived him. He died on 13 February 1728. Further information can be found at Wikipedia, The Mather Project or Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Mather kept a diary all his adult life, but only parts of it survived through to the 20th century when it was published, for the first time, by the Massachusetts Historical Society (in two volumes) with a preface by Worthington Chauncey Ford. Both volumes are freely available at Internet Archive: one (1681-1708) and two (1709 - 1724). According to Ford, Mather’s diary is of value as ‘the record of a man of peculiar attainments, as a bibliography of a very prolific compiler and publisher, and, most of all as an important contribution to the history of the Congregational Church in Massachusetts.’ In his preface, Ford provides some details on the diary itself.

‘So far as it has been preserved, this Diary is now printed for the first time. It is far from complete, and the record for some of the most important years of the diarist’s life has been lost or destroyed. It is an account edited by himself, and comprises therefore only what he wished to have preserved for the benefit of his children. Such care also precludes the idea that Mather was not preparing a calendar of events and a record of feelings for posterity, and therefore for publication. Enough of the Diary, perhaps more than enough, remains to develop and illustrate his career, and to enable the reader to measure the man in his intentions and in his actions. While describing these he has prepared, not consciously, the material for a better comprehension of the position of church affairs in Massachusetts during his ministrations.’

The bulk of the diary is taken up by a record of the writer’s devotions and religious affairs, but in between these it does also contain many personal and social details as well. Here are several extracts, mostly from the first volume, but with the last two taken from the second volume.

11 October 1696
‘A Great Storm seem’d breeding in the Weather; but being in Distress about my Journey, I wholly left it with my Lord Jesus Christ. So I undertook my Journey to Salem, and the storm strangely held off, till my Return, which was above a week after.’

12 February 1697
‘Friday. Being this Day thirty four Years old, I sett apart this Day, for a Thanksgiving, to bee offered unto God, in my Retirements; from a sense of the great Obligations unto Thankfulness which my Life, hath now, for thirty four Years together, been filled withal.

In the former Part of the Day, tho’ I mett with much Interruption, by Company that visited mee, I did several Things, to express my Praises unto God in my Lord Jesus Christ.

I paraphrased, improved and applied, the whole Hundred and Third Psalms, on my Knees before the Lord.

I deliberately read over a Catalogue of the Divine Dispensations towards mee from the Beginning; particularly Blessing of God, on each Article.

I distinctly perused, what I have recorded, in the Year past; with grateful Reflections on each Paragraph.

And I sang such Things as were suitable.’

7 November 1697
‘Lords-Day. I took my little Daughter, Katy, into my Study; and there I told my Child, that I am to dy shortly, and shee must, when I am Dead, Remember every Thing, that I said unto her.

I sett before her, the sinful and woful Condition of her Nature, and I charg’d her, to pray in secret Places, every Day, without ceasing, that God for the Sake of Jesus Christ would give her a New Heart, and pardon Her Sins, and make her a Servant of His.

I gave her to understand, that when I am taken from her, shee must look to meet with more humbling Afflictions than shee does, now shee has a careful and a tender Father to provide for her; but, if shee would pray constantly, God in the Lord Jesus Christ, would bee a Father to her, and make all Afflictions work together for her Good.

I signified unto her, That the People of God, would much observe how shee carried herself, and that I had written a Book, about, Ungodly Children, in the Conclusion whereof I say, that this Book will bee a terrible Witness against my own Children, if any of them should not bee Godly.

At length, with many Tears, both on my Part, and hers, I told my Child, that God had from Heaven assured mee, and the good Angels of God had satisfied mee, that shee shall bee brought Home unto the Lord Jesus Christ, and bee one of His forever. I bid her use this, as an Encouragement unto her Supplications unto the Lord, for His Grace. But I therewithal told her, that if shee did not now, in her Childhood seek the Lord, and give herself up unto Him, some dreadful Afflictions must befal her, that so her Father’s Faith, may come at its Accomplishments.

I thereupon made the Child kneel down by mee; and I poured out my Cries unto the Lord, that Hee would lay His Hands upon her, and bless her and save her, and make her a Temple of His Glory. It will bee so; It will be so!

I write this, the more particularly, that the Child may hereafter have the Benefit of reading it.’

3 May 1698
This Day, my little Daughter Hannah, was taken very dangerously sick of a Feavour, with Convulsions, to such a Degree, that there was little Hope of her Life. My Lecture, with other Fatigues, coming this Week upon mee, I could not Fast and Pray y as I would have done. Yett I pray’d, and cry’d unto Heaven, for the Child, and openly and publickly, as well as privately, made this an Opportunity, to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, by the cheerful Resignation thereof unto Him. Now, behold, the Event! Resigned Enjoyments, will bee still enjoy’d. While I was Joyfully, and yett mournfully giving up the Infant unto the Lord, the Lord raised my Heart at last, unto something of a particular Faith, for its being restored unto mee. And, unto my Amazement, it came to pass accordingly.

Moreover, having written, with exceeding Pains, an Idea and History, of the Reformation, especially in the English Nation, and of the Obstructions which it has mett withal, all still asserted with Passages quoted from the Writings of conformable Divines in the Church of England; whereto, I have added, some Conjectures, of a Reformation and Revolution at hand, exceeding that in the former Century: I now sent the Manuscript, (Anonymous) by the Hand of my Brother-in-Law, to a Bookseller in London; and, if it bee published, I have a secret Hope, that it will much affect the Affayrs of the Church, in the Changes that are approaching. In this Treatise, because I distinguish the Friends of the Reformation, by the Name of Eleutherians, (while I call its Foes, Idumaeans,) for the Causes there assigned, I therefore entitled the Book, Eleutheria. Lord! Accept and prosper this my poor Endeavour to serve Thee!’

30 October 1702
‘Yesterday, I first saw my Church-History, since the Publication of it. A Gentleman arrived here, from New Castle in England, that had bought it there. Wherefore, I sett apart this Day, for solemn THANKSGIVING unto God, for His watchful and gracious Providence over that Work, and for the Harvest of so many Prayers, and Cares, and Tears, and Resignations, as I had employ’d upon it.

My religious Friend, Mr. Bromfield, who had been singularly helpful to the Publication of that great Book, (of twenty shillings price, at London,) came to me at the Close of the Day, to join with me, in some of my Praises to God.

On this Day, my little Daughter Nibby, began to fall sick of the Small-pox. The dreadful Disease, which is raging in the Neighbourhood, is now gott into my poor Family. God prepare me, God prepare me, for what is coming upon me!

The Child, was favourably visited, in comparison of what many are.

It becomes impossible for me to record much in these Memorials; the vast Numbers of the Sick among my Neighbours and the Duties which I owe to the sick in my own Family, engrossing my Time exceedingly.

It being impossible for me, to visit the many Scores of sick Families in my Neighbourhood, and yett it being my desire to visit them as far as tis possible, I composed a Sheet which I entituled, Wholesome Words, or, A Visit of Advice to Families visited with Sickness. I putt myself to the small Expence of printing it; and then dividing my Flock into three Parts, I singled out three honest Men, unto whom I committed the care of lodging a Sheet in every Family, as fast as they should hear of any falling sick in it. The Lord makes this my poor Essay, exceeding acceptable and serviceable.

The Month of November coming on, I had on my Mind, a strong Impression, to look out some agreeable Paragraph of Scripture, to be handled in my public Ministry, while the two dreadful and mortal Sicknesses, of the Small Pox, and the Scarlet Feavour, should be raging among us. After earnest Supplications to the Lord, for His Direction, I used an Action, which I would not encourage, ever to be used in any divinatory Way. I thought, I would observe, whether the first Place that occurr’d at my opening of my Bible, would prove suitable or no; or such as might carry any Intimation of angelical Direction in it. Unto my Amazement, it proved, the History of our Lords curing the sick Son of the Nobleman, in the fourth Chapter of John. I saw, that the whole Bible afforded not a more agreeable or profitable Paragraph. So, I began a course of Sermons upon it.’

14 November 1721
‘What an Occasion, what an Incentive, to have PIETY, more than ever quicken’d and shining in my Family, have I this morning been entertained withal!

My Kinsman, the Minister of Roxbury, being Entertained at my House, that he might there undergo the Small-Pox Inoculated, and so Return to the Service of his Flock, which have the Contagion begun among them;

Towards three a Clock in the Night, as it grew towards Morning of this Day, some unknown Hands, threw a fired Granado into the Chamber where my Kinsman lay, and which uses to be my Lodging-Room. The Weight of the Iron Ball alone, had it fallen upon his Head, would have been enough to have done Part of the Business designed. But the Granado was charged, the upper part with dried Powder, the lower Part with a Mixture of Oil of Turpentine and Powder and what else I know not, in such a Manner, that upon its going off, it must have splitt, and have probably killed the Persons in the Room, and certainly fired the Chamber, and speedily laid the House in Ashes. But, this Night there stood by me the Angel of the GOD, whose I am and whom I serve; and the merciful Providence of GOD my SAVIOUR, so ordered it, that the Granado passing thro’ the Window, had by the Iron in the Middle of the Casement, such a Turn given to it, that in falling on the Floor, the fired Wild-fire in the Fuse was violently shaken out upon the Floor, without firing the Granado. When the Granado was taken up, there was found a Paper so tied with String about the Fuse, that it might out-Live the breaking of the Shell, which had these words in it; Cotton Mather, You Dog, Dam you: I’ll inoculate you with this, with a Pox to you.’

12 December 1721
‘My Son Increase, by a violent and passionate Resentment of an Indignity, which a wicked Fellow offered unto me, has exposed himself to much Danger, and me also to no little Trouble. I must employ this Occasion as much to his Advantage, especially in regard of Piety, as I can.

God graciously gives a good Issue to it.’

The Diary Junction

Diary briefs

Unpublished Dalí diary sold in Paris - Sotheby’s, The Guardian

The diaries of Vivienne Westwood - The Bookseller

Napoleonic Wars diary found in Hobart - ABC News

The Berlin Diary of Roger Casement 1914-1916 - Merrion Press, Irish News

Falklands veteran returns Argentine diary - Folkestone Herald

Norwegian’s Nazi camp diary - Vanderbilt University Press, Amazon

Alfred Rosenberg’s lost diary - HarperCollins, The Telegraph, Israeli National News

WWI diary of Kiwi journalist - Stuff.co.nz

Suffragette diary sold at auction - Plymouth Auctions (Lot 128), The Plymouth Herald

WWII diaries of Soviet children - RT.com