Called on Canon Payne – paid him the Loggin rent due at Michaelmas. Stephen Hands called this morning and promised to pay rent for Heath Farm one day next week as he was going to Rugby fair to sell some horses.

Visited Mrs Shelswell. John Harris junior called this evening with his bill amounting to over £9. I spoke to him about his bad conduct and told him I feared he had been giving way to “the drink”. He said it was that that “had done it”. I was glad to be able to persuade him to sign a pledge of total abstinence for three months.

I then endeavoured to persuade him to marry the girl he had ruined, telling him he ought to do so before the birth of the child that was expected. He said he could not as he had been engaged to another for two or three years. But as he informed me that she had had a child by another man during the time I told him that engagement would not be considered binding. I could however only get him to promise to think of it.