Stephane Chenard

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Stephane Chenard has posted 534 annotations/comments since 1 January 2021.

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About Saturday 11 January 1661/62

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

His future reports (accessed by crystal ball, pray don't ask) will show an immediate series of diplomatic incidents and jealousies, starting yesterday with an amusing faux pas by "Cavalier Guasconi, a Florentine, who acts here more than the Resident, an inexperienced youth of no ability", who presumed to complain to the king (whose ear Guasconi has more than Giavarina seems to know; the "youth" fought for Charles II, who will knight him in a few months). On September 1 no less than the Grand Duke of Tuscany will be so "much concerned about the forms observed towards the republic of Genoa at this Court", that he will have precedents researched to confirm that the Genoese "never at any time received better treatment than those of France, Spain and Venice". And on September 29 Giavarina will add that departing Dutch envoys "at their coming (...) had Lord Craven [to meet them]; but now they would have claimed an earl, because of what happened with the Genoese ambassador Durazzo".

But it worked, hey. People in taverns all the way to Paris are talkin' about Genoa. And centuries later, everybody has forgotten those Dutch ambassadors; but Durazzo put Genoa so much in the news that he made it into the Diary, and here we are.

About Saturday 11 January 1661/62

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Why are we talking about the duke of Genoa today? Perhaps because just yesterday his Extraordinary Ambassador made his grand entrance; and it was so grand, indeed, that the French Gazette on February 10 (new style) will make it the main piece of a supplement (an "Extraordinaire" too) on happenings in London.

Escorted from Gravesend on the 9th, in a royal barge covered in crimson velvet with gold trim, the Ambassador was, yesterday at 3pm, met near the Tower steps by the Privy Council, then proceeded to Westminster in a 22-coach convoy, with all the red-and-white-plumed hats and velvet cloaks to make a proper Gazette article. Not as showy as a French or Spanish entry perhaps - and no fights, bah - but still "the multitude of the People (...) formed a double line all along the road", tho' sans Pepys, despite his being in and out of Westminster that afternoon. Days of banqueting and kowtowing are to follow - three meals of 28 dishes every day.

The proper courtier will know to brief himself a tad on who it is that we're toasting in there, to improve his chances of grabbing a bottle or a bit of silverware. But lol, in five full pages the Gazette won't name the Ambassador, other than as "the Ambassador".

Our habitual diplomatic source, Venetian ambassador Giavarina, had noted on November 4 last that "Durazzo, appointed by the republic of Genoa to come to England as ambassador and congratulate the king, ha[d] been in London some days but remain[ed] incognito, preparing his train". The marquis Agostino Durazzo had been the Genoese resident in France; more generally the Durazzo are a very big name Genoa (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dur…) and they know to prepare their train well.

But this particular Durazzo seems to have had especially good fixers, a resident who is "almost an Englishman", and, crucially, he bribed the master of ceremonies to get crowned-head protocol, including an earl (though not a very big one, the count of Carlisle). Giavarina wrote so just yesterday, finding the detail so sensitive that he put it in cypher - unusually for him, Giavarina being a bit relaxed on communication security and rarely being seen using code.

About Tuesday 31 December 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

John Evelyn's final entry for the year: "31. Setting my domestique affaires in order, & begging a blessing for the future Year I ended the present".

That's a plan! And so, here's to a happy new year 1662, new style; God save the king.

About Tuesday 31 December 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

The year ends, as far as the State Papers concern us, with a message from Capt. Thomas, master of The Welcome, asking Sam for "40 or 50 tickets to discharge sick or ill-conditioned men"; but also with a flurry of accounts from the shipyards to the Navy Commissioners, possibly part of the dossier Sam et al. used to compile the naval debt, though they're dated December 31 and so maybe didn't make the deadline. Viz., from Edward Gregory in Chatham, an "estimate of wages due at Chatham, from July 1, 1660 to January 31, 1662", coming to £32,173. From Thomas Cowley in Deptford, another £14,105. From various other ropeyards and such, another £1,312. But also, dated by the State Papers' editors only as "Dec.?", this petition to the King from "Richard Lash and 14 others", reminding H.M. that "a warrant granted them to the Commissioners for payment of Navy debts, for 16,447£ 17s. due to them for stores delivered to the navy, is still unpaid", tho' the goods were delivered; and praying "a warrant to the farmers of Excise" – rather than the Navy itself, since asking them would be such a waste to time – "for speedy payment of the money".

Not to mention, in the great morass of papers only dated "1661?" which washes upon this far shore of the year's Papers, a warrant for Carteret to pay over £41,506 to Denis Gauden, the current victualler, "provided the auditor of the Exchequer charge the same upon him in his prest roll"; a bureaucratic complication that may or may not have hindered the actual payment (this unsorted paper is No. 4 of several hundred, so perhaps was on top of the pile, and most recent, when the Papers' editors discover'd it; but unsorted papers is not a good resting place for a warrant of this size, if it did happily follow the process to final payment).

So, not that we would presume to doubt Sam's summation of £374,000, understand. But that's over £64,000 that we find in just a casual sampling of the top of the pile. And maybe older debts were paid, or disallowed, or whatever, but is the year's final day such a time for last-minute desperation that 17% of the total would surface then? And none of it from the fleet itself, whose hundreds of ships and thousands of hungry sailors could account to even more than the remaining 83%. Or is the debt even worse than Sam could ascertain? Perhaps we'll see in the new year what reactions his estimate bring from the naval creditors.

About Tuesday 31 December 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Sam's "little treatise (...) about our privilege in the seas" had struck our Society as a personal project for his self-promotion. If so, good choice, for Alvise Grimani, the Venetian ambassador to France, notes in a dispatch written today (January 10, new style, at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) that France's incoming ambassador to England, "Mons. de l'Estrade, [who] has already set out to London, (...) from what I have been able to gather (...) has commissions to settle various points and particularly about the flag and other matters when the French and English fleets chance to meet". And it's so crucial that "from what I hear he will soon be back [to France] with the reply". Quite an effort, a return trip not being a casual thing even for an ambassador, just to courier those details. Said reply, from London on what protocols the English expect to be observed, will perhaps have been informed by a certain "little treatise".

About Tuesday 24 December 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Ah yes, if this was Samūēl Pepinus, reporting from A.D. 161, we'd be treated to pages and pages of the streets of Rome flowing with wine, and orgy, and madness, and... But he don't, so there. John Evelyn is moderately inspired too: "24. I returned home to Says-Court". Or is it a case of either of them having partied so hard today, that on the 25th at their usual time for diary-updating... ooh, my poor head, why, I just can't.

Providence be thanked, there's always the State Papers. In Tangiers Bay today, "Jo. Creed" writes "to Samuel Pepys: [I have] paid in 14 weeks' short allowance of one third to the officers of the Augustine, now to be paid off by order of the Earl of Sandwich". Sam won't get it for at least a couple of weeks. But on the Augustine, in the balmy Tangiers evening, rock n'roll.

About Monday 23 December 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

But, if Browne was in the timber-drawing trade in 1663, what to make of footnote 2 to this dispatch from Alvise Sagredo, Venetian Ambassador in France, sent in December 1663 and available at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…, which reports on the duke of York discussing "one flag ship [that] had been taken" by the Barbarians; for footnote 2, added by the dispatch's University of London compilers, identifies the ship as "apparently the Henry (...) reported by Consul Browne to have been brought, into Algiers on 16 September". And the footnote goes on to cite "Browne's despatch of 29 Sept., 1603. S.P. Foreign Spain, Vol. xlv." Aye, 1603! Please say it's a typo (before ye ask, there was no English consul in Algiers in 1603; woe and sobs, we do not have access to the State Papers Foreign for Spain).

So, to recap: Browne's full name was Robert Browne. He was another Cromwell appointee who stayed on. He spoke the Lingua Franca. And in a couple of years, depending on which part of the multiverse our archives come from, he may be a slave on a dunghill, or he may still be sending the Algiers shipping news to London, and perhaps starting to worry about that buboe. And either way, he's no longer a lost soul. Merry Christmas.

About Monday 23 December 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

This being Christmaseve, we were moved by the sad case of "Mr, Browne, the English Consul to Algiers -- still a lost soul to the Google librarian", and endeavour'd to persuade Mr Google, calling upon our fond memories of frolicking together, and old favours ow'd us, and (but only briefly) some red-hot pincers, to cough out what he knows.

Out came his given name: "Robert Browne, Consul, 1655-1663", from a diplomatic list at https://en.algeriagate.info/2023/…. Followed a graphic description from "Bargrave's catalogue: Rara, Antiqua, et Numismata Bargraviana" at https://drc.usask.ca/projects/ark…, by John Bargrave, a clergyman and Evelyn acquaintance who was there when Browne negotiated slave releases with "Shaban Agaà il Grand d' Algeers". Bargrave was there because this was effected "with hierarchical and cathedral money". He says the consul "had formerly lived long among them [the Algerine], and had their Lingua Franca perfectly". Would that be the case of all ambassadors.

But we disgress. For, lo! Bargrave then says "we were no sooner gone but they [the treacherous Orientals] seized on all he [Browne] had, shaved his head, and made him a slave, where he helped to draw timber and stones to a fortification, receiving so many blows a day with a bull’s nerve, until he was beaten to death, and his body cast out upon a dunghill".

So poor Mr Browne is deddd?? Oh no! And we hardly knew him.

And we still do, it seems, because while Bargrave says this happened at the end of a mission he undertook in 1662, another source says Browne "d. 1663, of plague" ("List of British Consular Officials in the Ottoman Empire and its former territories, from the sixteenth century to about 1860", https://www.levantineheritage.com…, at page 46). That source itself relies upon Alfred Cecil Wood's "History of the Levant Company" (London, 1935), snippets of which are available at https://books.google.fr/books/abo…; in fact it seems to mention Robert Browne only once, noting that he probably made £400 a year, but nothing at all about his death, of plague or otherwise.

OK, so this report of being "d. of plague" looks a bit dodgy. Makes the slave-on-dungheap story more credible. And, 'tis to be suppos'd that, with precise enough timing, you can both have plague and be beaten to death.

About Tuesday 17 December 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Disorderly books, why, there has to be a few. But while a quick riffling of the Bodleian's holdings of 1661 imprints turns up large piles of "panegyricks to His Sacred Majesty" and the like, in the frankly subversive category we only find "An epitaph upon the Solemn League and Covenant". It had the honor of being "Condemned to be burnt by the common hangman", but it seems at least one copy slipped through (and lives at https://ota.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/rep…) Of course there could be a hundred more hiding under less explicit titles.

The State Papers did mention, in an "Examination of Thomas Creake" dated June 29, that the fiend had printed and delivered 660 copies of "The Phoenix of the Solemn League and Covenant", and was printing 2,000 of "Several Prodigies and Apparitions seen in the Heavens, from Aug. 1, 1660, to the end of May, 1661". The hunt for the Prodigies has been going on for months (it's around this time that L'Estrange is lobbying to be created Surveyor of the Press) and is explained by secretary Nicholas in a letter of October 4 to the Keeper of the Gatehouse, as he sends in yet another printer, that they "prognosticat[e] mischievous events to the King (...) instilling into the hearts of subjects a superstitious belief thereof, and a dislike and hatred of His Majesty's person and government".

The UCSB ballads collection (at https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu) has only four that are unambiguously from 1661. However one of them is the quite prominent "Cavaleers Complaint" (at https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/bal…) it's about an old cavalier, who visits at Court and finds none of the king's true friends of olde, but only "swarmes of Those/Who lately were our chiefest Foes/Of Pantaloons and Muffes/Whilst the Old rusty Cavaleer/Retires, or dares not once appear/For want of Coyne, and Cuffes". Disorderly, that one? We'll let the publick judge.

About Saturday 7 December 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Sarah, not reading ahead we only now come across your enquiry concerning Mme de l'E. We incline toward her being L'Espervanche (a later spelling will be L'Éspervanche, with a so-French acute accent). Googling her first leads us to abundant Canadian records of a captain Charles François Mésière (or Mézières), écuyer sieur de [squire lord of] Lespervanche, born 1695 in his fief the still-extant village of Boisset-les-Prévanches, a small village in Normandy, close enough to Paris.

The family manor seems cozy enough - tho' with these old houses and their leaky roofs you never know - and according to https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boi… was built in the early 17C by someone still known only as Louis de Mézières. In any case there would have been a Mme de l'Espervanche, whom we can imagine by a first-floor window, drafting the letters she would send from Paris.

But it was apparently too small for Charles, who joined the Navy and went to Louisiana, then to Canada, where he left traces recapped in great detail at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/De_…. His parents are listed there as [unknown], but research posted by Josiah de la Motte, a descendant, at https://groups.google.com/g/soc.g…, goes deep into the rabbit hole of birth records and marriage contracts.

Long story short: It leads to the captain's granny on the Méziéres/Lespervanches side, a certain Jeanne de Lux, daughter of the late Jacques de Lux, Seigneur de Vantelet and, as per the source Josiah links at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148…, "gentilhomme ordinaire de la Feüe Reine Mère du Roy de la Grande Bretagne" [ordinary gentleman to the late Queen Mother of England, Henrietta, who by the time of that 1684 record was indeed long dead]. And so, bingo.

Tho', in fairness it was Jacques' wife, Marguerite Courtin, Madame de Vantelet, who provided the connection to Henrietta, of whom she was a great favorite (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar…; the de Lux still didn't come from nowhere, they had provided a butler for Louis XIII). In 1653 Jeanne's wedding, to a de Mézières who was himself butler to Louis XIV, was even attended by the exiled Charles II. By another source (at https://gw.geneanet.org/jksir?lan…) she was born in 1630, and so is still in her prime as she seals the letters. It's unclear how she came to know my lord, if she did and isn't just writing on behalf of "his lordship's friends"; perhaps in Holland after the exiled court moved there?

By an amusing coincidence perhaps, according to Josiah's research (citing a record at https://bit.ly/3yHxMzR, which alas links to a paywalled site), Charles was to marry in 1725 in "the parish of L'Assomption de Sandwich de Windsor" in Detroit.

About Wednesday 4 December 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Oh, and Sam has mail today. Edward Gregory writes from Chatham, and it will be in the State Papers, that "the officers and company of the St. George will punctually observe the time and place appointed for their paying off. [So the paying off had better be punctual too, comprende?] The hemp bought from Alderman Barker is coarse and rotten, and will spoil any better wrought in with it".

We (and maybe Sam) thereby learn a valuable nugget about rope-making. ("And not a single one of these mouldy strands, pray, or it can rot the whole cable, ye know", Sam says, finger-wagging. "Whoa", the clerk thinks, "Master knows about rope-making too. I luv him so much").

We predict that soon the State Papers will offer us one of these letters almost every day - and we phant'sy it will still be a sliver of his in-tray traffic. But for now they're still a rarity. Why? Maybe the Pepys Rational Method for Safekeeping Archives isn't there yet, and so the letters end up wrapping the day's takeaway mince pie.

About Wednesday 4 December 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Who put' im there, the Man on the Stairs? Why, it be the Thames' hundred hands, after some of its thousand eyes did spye him! "Look there", says Jack the cable-thief, "a dead bod! Good clothes, too!" Jack, Dick and Bob forget all about stealing another piece of rope and fish out the poor guy to drag him to the stairs and strip him. All they get out of his pockets is a farthing and a rotten herring.

For background, ask - if ye know how - the head of Cromwell, which from its perch atop Westminster sees all and smirks at the ways of the world. On that night the wind had turned it just to the right direction. "'Twas another stupid wager, 'I can run the bridge at night'. Bing, into the piling. Two of them this month already", the head told us on WhatsApp.

In the gilded halls of Parliament there was actually quite a bit of gossip and shudder; only, the official record doesn't include hallway gossip and shudder. You see, when some traitor's entrails are burned "before his eyes" and his quarters thereafter "hung in the usual places", as the papers then say, 'tis one thing. But here... Not a criminal or traitor, but some Christian brother... We're not some monsters inured to suffering, ye know. And then, having to step over that thing, on your way to work... And, so soon after the king ordered to tidy up and make nice our little Westminster. So, shudder.

About Tuesday 3 December 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Reflecting on the Poisonous airs of these Times, apart from all the nitpicking on property claims exposed above by Sarah, we also happen'd upon two letters in the State Papers. One, dated December 2, is from a Serjeant Thos. Brown to none other than John Evelyn, reporting accusations uttered by a Mr. Christmas, of "saying that the late King was an arrant juggler" and the present one "an idle, ignorant man", and that Sir John "would as soon kiss a sow as go to Whitehall to kiss the King's hand". Which seems comicall to anyone who knows Evelyn (or checked his Wiki), on whom Charles II calls from time to time to discuss the rings of Saturn. Evelyn has a property deal gone sour with this Mr. Christmas, and jots on the letter "that this accusation was only made in revenge". Tomorrow he's due at the Duke of York, where (he says in his diary) he will discuss the case of "a woman who swallowed a whole ear of barley", and perhaps the late slander against his innocent gardening person.

Today it's the turn of Roger L'Estrange, to "vindicate himself" in a letter to Chancellor Clarendon, "from the charge of James Whitelock, that he was a traitor, and had received £600 from Cromwell". Roger is anything but an innocent gardening person, but in this case he was so sanguine about his vindication as to have it printed. At this time he is fast rising as Charles II's propaganda master and will soon, we expect, be his most zealous censor of subversive books and pamphlets.

We resolve, on the next occasion when we feel like calling someone nasty names, to call the rogue "you arrant juggler". That should stop him cold ("you what??") and give us a second or two before he smashes a bottle on the bar.

About Saturday 30 November 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Like so many good things in life, that bit on the duke came from Venetian ambassador Giavarina. On December 2 (new style, November 22 old style) he writes that "the duke of York has been at Dunkirk and is momentarily expected back at Court". Indeed, on November 20-21 he is unlisted on the attendence roll of the House of Lords, where he reappears on November 22.

As for why he went there, apart from reviewing the troops before they go to Tangiers, in the same message Giavarina reports being told by royal secretary Nicholas "that he had intelligence with [from] the governor of Dunkirk [on plans] for the revolt of that fortress". Given frequent remarks on the difficulty of paying the troops, this seems more likely to be about money than restoring the Commonwealth, so perhaps the duke went with a few heavy bags.

Yes Sarah, you're quite right that Gravelines is no longer an English base (or problem). Reading ahead, we came across what seems to be the Venetian embassy's end-of-year report (undated, listed as Cod. 1490/11 at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) which helpfully notes that "the garrison of Dunkirk consists of 6,000 foot and 600 horse, all English except a few Walloons. In the fort of Mardich there will be about 3,000 Irish".

So, given Mardike's monthly payroll of £3,500 cited at https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… above, those Irish make a grand 17s. (£0.86) a month; and we wager that the proper English troops are paid even more. But they're all fed, lodged and clothed (aren't they? hmm), and maybe they'll get to see the sensuous mysteries of the Orient.

About Saturday 30 November 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Tho' the very Angels sing of His Majesty's incomparable wisdom, &c., in this matter of the coinage perhaps he, and those adulating MPs as they fall over each other to demonstrate their love, should heed this "Remonstrance by Alderman Blackwell to the King and Council", which forever shakes his head in the State Papers for November 27 current, on how not everything can be improvised.

Retiring the Commonwealth money as soon as the end of the month, Blackwell wrote, "would be an injury to trade, because the Mint would be glutted with 500,000£. worth of coin, having already 100,000£, and being unable to coin more than 10,000£. a week".

To put this last number in perspective, pray consider this note seen back in March (at https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) which put the Navy's debts as of February 1 at £1,284,452, and even more usefully the "charge of setting forth and maintaining a fleet of 13,065 men, for 9 month's service" at £470,340. So, £52,260 per month, or one-third more than the Mint can supply, just for victualling the Navy. On November 28, a warrant directs the treasurer for the garrison of Dunkirk to pay £3,500 just for the monthly salary of the Mardike regiment. So, one-third of the weekly output just for one regiment, and we're not sure how many make up the garrison but we suspect there's at least two others, at Dunkirk proper and Gravelines.

And this, at a time when the entire New Model Army is being disbanded and paid off, and the Duke of York himself has had to jet off to, precisely, Dunkirk to check into rumors of plots and mutiny. Of course kicking the can down to March 1662 isn't going to change the picture. Instead Blackwell concludes with the sensible suggestion "that no time may be limited for its calling in, but that it may be taken gradually". Advice that would spare Sam a lifetime of tally-sticks, IOUs, defaults and angry sailors, but which we fear even many modern States will disregard in the future...

About Thursday 24 October 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Ah yes, so quiet and humdrum this English political scene. Nothin' is on. So boring! Zzzzz...

Fortunately, there's always an Episcopalian plot to amuse us. The latest is apparently so interesting that it seems to have prompted Venetian ambassador Giavarina to write his weekly report today (at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) rather than to wait for the quiet of Sunday as usual. It was, he says, "discovered in the present week", and "when the king heard of it he immediately devoted himself with the Council" to emergency action, ordering the arrest of nine officers, "all of the land forces now in the metropolis [the London trained bands, right at the Westminster doors], some from Monk's own companies", plus "at Hertford some colonels".

Plots and plotters are so omnipresent that perhaps Sam heard of it but dismissed the news as too routine to mention. We find an echo in the State Papers, which have several minutes dated October 24 from witness examinations, reporting fifth columns of "3,000 men about the City, maintained by Presbyterian ministers", or of "6,000 men with arms in London" - vast, rounded numbers that read like what a witness would say just to make him stop, the guy holding the pliers. But details will also pop up in the French Gazette dated November 19 (new style), in a London dispatch of November 10 which, between a marriage and a medal, notes that the conspirators included, uh-oh, a former Republican ambassador to Holland ("le Sieur Olivier S. Jean", unlisted in Wikipedia's seamless chronology at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis…, or among the names that also appear in this week's Mercurius Politicus). Henry Vane and a couple of other Rep heavies have also been relocated to remoter and safer places than the Tower. The State Papers on October 21 had a warrant to Capt. Thomas Allin "to receive Sir Henry Vane, [and] transport him safe prisoner to the Isle of Scilly".

Giavarina adds that the plot "was discovered only six hours before it was to take effect". So we were *this close* to getting a so-much-more interesting Diary.

About Friday 18 October 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

"The Queen's provision"; ah yes, maybe it's about time to worry about that, eh? The fleet to fetch her up has been wallowing at anchor for months, to everyone's puzzlement, and is supposed to sail any day. Sam at the Office's Department of Cheese and Biscuits isn't the only one to get busy, as we saw on October 14 in the State Papers a "warrant to pay to the Earl of Sandwich (...) £1,920 on account, for making provision of bedding, sheets, and other necessaries, for fitting the ship that is to bring over the Infanta of Portugal".

On this day however, Venetian ambassador Giavarina also sends in his weekly report a rather less glamorous update on the pre-nuptials: "There is said to be some difficulty about the letters of exchange" sent by Portugal to pay the dowry, "so that for some days the preparations for the marriage seem to have slackened". More reason to favor durables like Cheshire cheese and pickles - we suggest Long Keeping cheese, good for 6-12 months (details at https://www.cheeseshopnantwich.co…)

And one consequence: "The earl of Peterborough [Henry, Lord Mordaunt, bio at https://www.queensroyalsurreys.or…] was all ready to start for Tangier, but waited because he had not received cash to pay the men he has enlisted and was to take for the garrison there. They assigned to him some of the money which the Portuguese are to pay on account of the dowry, but with a glance at the difficulties and fearing that it will be impossible for the duke of Braganza to fulfil his promises, he will not move before he is paid." You don't get quality soldiers in such conditions, either, so "he has got together 1,000 foot here, but all inexperienced country men who will die fast", plus a bunch of stray Irishmen.

We've seen, should add, a multitude of told-you-so reports in Paris and Venice tut-tutting on how wretchedly poor Portugal would never make good on the dowry. Various Spanish operatives have been happy to confirm. Up to Portugal to dispel the rumors, and get past the panicky "what do you mean my card's rejected" moment, to fishing out another one that doth work.

Meanwhile, in the quiet of her Lisbon palace the Infanta is re-re-reading the menu. Neats' tongues and anchovies for a month? "On odd days your majesty could switch to oysters and cheese".

About Sunday 13 October 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Indeed, it was most prudent and usefull to check. We saw and forgot that September minute. "On account" is in the October minute, but must refer to some reckoning agreed with Portugal in the 6+ weeks since the ships arrived.

The cargo may or may not be for Alfonso to gift to Charles; if owned by private merchants, good luck to them for getting full value for its sale in England. Apart from broker's fees, stuff falling off the truck and the reliability of letters of credit, the royal warrant of September 9 mentions "customs both English and Portuguese" being due; that could add up.

And now, senhores capitãos, just to confirm us in the supreme confidence we have in your navigation skills, pray explain again, to us the ministers of Portugal and representative of o grande Inquisidor, by what strange Accident you set sail for Portugal, and ended over 850 miles nauticall away in England, the land of so many Andrews, Johnses and Anthonies?

About Sunday 13 October 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

On the Sandwich logg, as posted by Sarah: A future Age will perhaps believe, on reading of these "3 night's rejoicing in Tangier for the match with Portugal", that Algeria won 2-1, as they in fact will in 1989 (not usually the case, however; see http://dzfootball.free.fr/EN/Pays…)

But on this occasion, we suspect that Tangier went wild not only for "the match", but also for the apparently still recent arrival of the Portuguese treasure fleet from Brazil, laden with an estimated "12 million" (currency unstated), including 4,200 "crates of sugar". So will advise the French Gazette on November 5 (new style), quoting a London dispatch from October 27 - which, given the time news take to travel and the 10-day difference between new- and old-style calendars, would seem to refer to events from early October at the latest. Tangiers may be better informed than London of the Lisbon news, but we phant'sy those came in good time to further elevate the publick mood.

A few pinches of this sugar will now presumably make their way to Sam's Rhenish wine. Indeed we see that the Portuguese are so eager to be nice to their new English friends that three of their Brazilian ships sailed straight up the Thames, without even stopping in Portugal, to pay customs duties to English customs. A memo from the Treasury, dated October 15 (at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) suggests a bit of bewilderment among the Customs Commissioners, who were reassured by the "Portuguese ministers" that "it may be for their master's service that the moneys due for the Portugall customes should be paid to our use, upon accompt betwixt us and that King [Afonso VI of Portugal]".

About Tuesday 24 September 1661

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Ah yes, there was more to come in the mail: On October 20 (all dates new style), the same Gazette will publish in a long Extraordinary a letter "from a Gentleman of England", himself quoting updates from the Mediterranean dated through September 18 - perhaps copies of all or some of those "letters from the Sea" that Sam has received. It gives a slightly greater tally, adding two Algerine ships sunk and two driven to the coast under Sandwich's command in early September (again, without confirmation in the latter's own diary), plus two sunk, one beached and eight captured by Lawson after Sandwich went away. So 15 more, to a total of 21-25, evenly split between My Lord and his able vice-admiral in case anyone pays attention to that.

Perhaps this level of damage could begin to enter "considerable" territory? The Barbarian pyrates do not have an unlimited fleet; a further Gazette dispatch, dated October 10 (new style) from London, says that Algiers "has 40 Ships at sea", so a score of sunk, beached or captured vessels could already have taken out 20-25% of their strength. In principle plenty of reinforcement could come from other "Turkish" dominions, or even from Constantinople should the Sultan be truly aggrieved, but he's far, he has an even bigger conflict going in Cyprus, and he may not care that much about a bunch of irregulars.

The October 10 report adds that "those of Algiers have, recently, killed their Chief, being quite at odds among themselves [fort broüillez entr'eux], in particular over the proposals for Settlement, that had been made to them by (...) Admiral Montagu". Possibly true; sadly there's no source, and "those of Algiers" ain't writing letters to the Gazette.