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Read Ebook: Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 62: February 1667-68 by Pepys Samuel Braybrooke Richard Griffin Baron Editor Wheatley Henry B Henry Benjamin Editor Bright Mynors Translator
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THE DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS M.A. F.R.S.
CLERK OF THE ACTS AND SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY
WITH LORD BRAYBROOKE'S NOTES
EDITED WITH ADDITIONS BY
HENRY B. WHEATLEY F.S.A.
DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS. FEBRUARY 1667-1668
February 1st. Up, and to the office pretty betimes, and the Board not meeting as soon as I wished, I was forced to go to White Hall in expectation of a Committee for Tangier, but when I come it was put off, and so home again to the office, and sat till past two o'clock; where at the Board some high words passed between Sir W. Pen and I, begun by me, and yielded to by him, I being in the right in finding fault with him for his neglect of duty. At noon home to dinner, and after dinner out with my wife, thinking to have gone to the Duke of York's playhouse, but was, to my great content in the saving my vow, hindered by coming a little too late; and so, it being a fine day, we out to Islington, and there to the old house and eat cheese-cakes and drank and talked, and so home in the evening, the ways being mighty bad, so as we had no pleasure in being abroad at all almost, but only the variety of it, and so to the office, where busy late, and then home to supper and to bed, my head mighty full of business now on my hands: viz., of finishing my Tangier Accounts; of auditing my last year's Accounts; of preparing answers to the Commissioners of Accounts; of drawing up several important letters to the Duke of York and the Commissioners of the Treasury; the marrying of my sister; the building of a coach and stables against summer, and the setting many things in the Office right; and the drawing up a new form of Contract with the Victualler of the Navy, and several other things, which pains, however, will go through with, among others the taking care of Kate Joyce in that now she is in at present for saving her estate.
an able lawyer, about the business of our prizes, and left the matter with him to think of against to-morrow, this being a matter that do much trouble my mind, though there be no fault in it that I need fear the owning that I know of. Thence with Cocke home to his house and there left him, and I home, and there got my wife to read a book I bought to-day, and come out to-day licensed by Joseph Williamson for Lord Arlington, shewing the state of England's affairs relating to France at this time, and the whole body of the book very good and solid, after a very foolish introduction as ever I read, and do give a very good account of the advantage of our league with Holland at this time. So, vexed in my mind with the variety of cares I have upon me, and so to bed.
under the title of the King's Foole or jester; and may with privilege revile or jeere any body, the greatest person, without offence, by the privilege of his place. Thence took up my wife, and home, and there busy late at the office writing letters, and so home to supper and to bed. The House was called over to-day. This morning Sir G. Carteret come to the Office to see and talk with me: and he assures me that to this day the King is the most kind man to my Lord Sandwich in the whole world; that he himself do not now mind any publick business, but suffers things to go on at Court as they will, he seeing all likely to come to ruin: that this morning the Duke of York sent to him to come to make up one of a Committee of the Council for Navy Affairs; where, when he come, he told the Duke of York that he was none of them: which shews how things are now-a-days ordered, that there should be a Committee for the Navy; and the Lord Admiral not know the persons of it! And that Sir G. Carteret and my Lord Anglesey should be left out of it, and men wholly improper put into it. I do hear of all hands that there is a great difference at this day between my Lord Arlington and Sir W. Coventry, which I am sorry for.
and talked with him, who tells me how he hath been persecuted, and how he is yet well come off in the business of the dividing of the fleete, and the sending of the letter. He expects next to be troubled about the business of bad officers in the fleete, wherein he will bid them name whom they call bad, and he will justify himself, having never disposed of any but by the Admiral's liking. And he is able to give an account of all them, how they come recommended, and more will be found to have been placed by the Prince and Duke of Albemarle than by the Duke of York during the war, and as no bad instance of the badness of officers he and I did look over the list of commanders, and found that we could presently recollect thirty-seven commanders that have been killed in actuall service this war. He tells me that Sir Fr. Hollis is the main man that hath persecuted him hitherto, in the business of dividing the fleete, saying vainly that the want of that letter to the Prince hath given him that, that he shall remember it by to his grave, meaning the loss of his arme; when, God knows! he is as idle and insignificant a fellow as ever come into the fleete. He tells me that in discourse on Saturday he did repeat Sir Rob. Howard's words about rowling out of counsellors, that for his part he neither cared who they rowled in, nor who they rowled out, by which the word is become a word of use in the House, the rowling out of officers. I will remember what, in mirth, he said to me this morning, when upon this discourse he said, if ever there was another Dutch war, they should not find a Secretary; "Nor," said I, "a Clerk of the Acts, for I see the reward of it; and, thanked God! I have enough of my own to buy me a good book and a good fiddle, and I have a good wife;"--"Why," says he, "I have enough to buy me a good book, and shall not need a fiddle, because I have never a one of your good wives." I understand by him that we are likely to have our business of tickets voted a miscarriage, but cannot tell me what that will signify more than that he thinks they will report them to the King and there leave them, but I doubt they will do more. Thence walked over St. James's Park to White Hall, and thence to Westminster Hall, and there walked all the morning, and did speak with several Parliament-men-among others, Birch, who is very kind to me, and calls me, with great respect and kindness, a man of business, and he thinks honest, and so long will stand by me, and every such man, to the death. My business was to instruct them to keep the House from falling into any mistaken vote about the business of tickets, before they were better informed. I walked in the Hall all the morning with my Lord Brouncker, who was in great pain there, and, the truth is, his business is, without reason, so ill resented by the generality of the House, that I was almost troubled to be seen to walk with him, and yet am able to justify him in all, that he is under so much scandal for. Here I did get a copy of the report itself, about our paying off men by tickets; and am mightily glad to see it, now knowing the state of our case, and what we have to answer to, and the more for that the House is like to be kept by other business to-day and to-morrow, so that, against Thursday, I shall be able to draw up some defence to put into some Member's hands, to inform them, and I think we may a very good one, and therefore my mind is mightily at ease about it. This morning they are upon a Bill, brought in to-day by Sir Richard Temple, for obliging the King to call Parliaments every three years; or, if he fail, for others to be obliged to do it, and to keep him from a power of dissolving any Parliament in less than forty days after their first day of sitting, which is such a Bill as do speak very high proceedings, to the lessening of the King; and this they will carry, and whatever else they desire, before they will give any money; and the King must have money, whatever it cost him. I stepped to the Dog Tavern, and thither come to me Doll Lane, and there we did drink together, and she tells me she is my valentine . . . . Thence, she being gone, and having spoke with Mr. Spicer here, whom I sent for hither to discourse about the security of the late Act of 11 months' tax on which I have secured part of my money lent to Tangier. I to the Hall, and there met Sir W. Pen, and he and I to the Beare, in Drury Lane, an excellent ordinary, after the French manner, but of Englishmen; and there had a good fricassee, our dinner coming to 8s., which was mighty pretty, to my great content; and thence, he and I to the King's house, and there, in one of the upper boxes, saw "Flora's Vagarys," which is a very silly play; and the more, I being out of humour, being at a play without my wife, and she ill at home, and having no desire also to be seen, and, therefore, could not look about me. Thence to the Temple, and there we parted, and I to see Kate Joyce, where I find her and her friends in great ease of mind, the jury having this day given in their verdict that her husband died of a feaver. Some opposition there was, the foreman pressing them to declare the cause of the feaver, thinking thereby to obstruct it: but they did adhere to their verdict, and would give no reason; so all trouble is now over, and she safe in her estate, which I am mighty glad of, and so took leave, and home, and up to my wife, not owning my being at a play, and there she shews me her ring of a Turky-stone set with little sparks of dyamonds,
which I am to give her, as my Valentine, and I am not much troubled at it. It will cost me near L5--she costing me but little compared with other wives, and I have not many occasions to spend on her. So to my office, where late, and to think upon my observations to-morrow, upon the report of the Committee to the Parliament about the business of tickets, whereof my head is full, and so home to supper and to bed.
of his being forced by imprisonment, &c., by my Lord Gerard, most barbarously to confess his forging of a deed in behalf of Fitton, in the great case between him and my Lord Gerard; which business is under examination, and is the foulest against my Lord Gerard that ever any thing in the world was, and will, all do believe, ruine him; and I shall be glad of it. Thence with Lord Brouncker and T. Harvey as far as the New Exchange, and there at a draper's shop drawing up a short note of what they are to desire of the House for our having a hearing before they determine any thing against us, which paper is for them to show to what friends they meet against to-morrow, I away home to the office, and there busy pretty late, and here comes my wife to me, who hath been at Pegg Pen's christening, which, she says, hath made a flutter and noise; but was as mean as could be, and but little company, just like all the rest that that family do. So home to supper and to bed, with my head full of a defence before the Parliament tomorrow, and therein content myself very well, and with what I have done in preparing some of the members thereof in order thereto.
Being very poor and mean as to the bearing with trouble Bite at the stone, and not at the hand that flings it Burned it, that it might not be among my books to my shame Come to see them in bed together, on their wedding-night Fear what would become of me if any real affliction should come Force a man to swear against himself L'escholle des filles, a lewd book Live of L100 a year with more plenty, and wine and wenches No pleasure--only the variety of it
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