Penn's letter is indeed a rare example of the Admiral at work, but it should be entirely representative of what he does, which is, as "controller of victualling accounts", to nitpick over invoices which Sam has approved (see the job description at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Con…) What an exalting occupation, if you happen to not like the Clerk of the Acts very much; one even wonders if the enmity was known and played a role in Penn's appointment.
And so, today, when the whole office still quietly seethes over Sam's Great Letter - he ratted them out to HRH, then everyone had to think (argh) and write out a report with correct spelling and no inkspots (urgh) - Penn chooses to put his nose into, for instance, ships belonging to Sam's crony William Warren - check out his Encyclopedia entry (https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…) and decide if it's likely to be a random target.
This is followed by a bunch of open-ended queries which could require a lot of archive boxes to be dredged out and explored, indeed (if, that is, archive boxes had yet been invented). Provisions to *all* merchant ships to Barbadoes (and on what grounds, pray tell, do those have to be "stopped"?)
"Dead pursers". Sam shakes his head. "Sir", he tells Penn in the stiff tone reserved for him in particular, "I regret to inform your Lordship that this office, as may surprise any tourist who wanders in by accident, does not get a card when a purser, of which the King's Navy has hundreds, marries, or passes away. We're not their mommies".
Penn continues: "Sir, I also believe that some beverage wine was delivered to, er, some of those ships, would you have some records documenting that, Mr. *Clerk* [heavy emphasis]? Do feel free to say no, it's common knowledge that your record-keeping is, ah, sometimes a bit rushed. Which we understand, it's a lot of work to cram between plays..."
Recall that shambolic archiving was, from all that the other Commissioners had to say in their replies to the Great Letter, the only charge that stuck on Sam enough to make the Diary - and indeed, there are few worse insults you can aim at a bureaucrat.
A snicker from Sam: "Sir, you 'believe' that ships receive 'beverage wine'? Your belief is entirely correct; this has to show your keen naval expertise. In fact, *all* of His Majesty's vessels receive wine, and many other things besides. Care you to make your query more specific? My clerks are busy fellows, they do have 90,000 sailors to manage. And alas, we sometimes lose records to the rats that escape from your kitchen".
Piero, in his other letter of this day (No. 341), also continues to whine on how hard it is to get England to do anything about the siege of Candia. This time, it's that, after working so hard to get a public audience with Charles (he already had a private meeting where Charles made excuses, but obviously that's not what he's in London for), it all got cancelled when the court went on its tour of the provinces. Aaargh! Here, Piero flatters himself in thinking that it was all to dodge him: "It looks as if the absence of the Court is only to lose time for my offices to get a decision [on sending ships against the Turk] before the departure of the ships with the Dutch troops". The States have promised to send some, and Piero counted on one-upmanship by Charles; in your dreams only, amico mio.
His Venetian Excellency tells himself stories and he knows it: In his second letter (No. 342, mistakenly referenced in our preceding annotation as No. 340, sorry about that) he relates that the royal trip out of town was in part for the big-time ceremony where York was appointed Lord High Admiral, a sure sign this York has a big future (you betcha): "The duke of Hiorch has been declared General of the Cinque Ports".
Ha ha, the "duke of Hiorch". Has Piero ever seen his name in print, or does England keep its documents so jealously? We are tempted to put this together with this otherwise completely unrelated, but delightful, private letter which also appears in today's State Papers [S.P. Dom Car II. 246, No. 51]. The Papers' editors also thought it such a savoury piece of 17C style that they excerpted rather than summarized it. A "J. Aldrich" apparently offers to correct his uncle's lamentable orthograph: "for it grieves a man's heart to hear (besides the manifest damage that accrues to his Majesty's English from the reading of false spellings) how sadly people are forced, with great hazard to their own teeth and their friend's ears, to pick out of your letters such words as would challenge even Wales itself for harshness. I beg fair writing for the sake of the University your mother (...)"
On th' other hand, orthograph - what a strange modern notion, do you meane a ſingle Way of writing that should enſlave our Wits to some man's Rule? A sign of the Age, that young people should fancy Systems of that sort, but then, it's all about Systems and Classifications now, isn't it.
In the State Papers written out today there is also this one, which gives us a rare glimpse into Leicester House, where France is splashing out on its extravagant embassy: "Privy seal for 30 tuns of wine, half French, half Spanish, for Sieur Colbert, the French Ambassador" [Entry Book 30, f.80b.]
Mon Dieu! A tun, Dr. Wikipedia informs us at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tun…, is 252 gallons, or 952 liters - so yes, that's over 28,000 liters which M. Colbert will have at his disposal to get his points across to visiting courtiers, console himself of diplomatic reversals, or (the King's wine tax being what it is) indulge in a li'l bit of business on the side if he (or his butler) should phant'sy that.
Today apparently, the claret would be more for consolation. Our friend Piero Mocenigo, the Venetian ambassador, favors us with two of his voluminous letters to the Doge and Senate; in one (No. 340, at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) he updates the intelligence he had provided a week ago (see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) on Colbert's proposals to King Charles. They included (a) selling Tangiers to France - alas, "money has not sufficed to remove the obstacles" to that, Piero writes (either the price wasn't right, or Charles ain't what you all think); and (b) to make France and England mutually exclusive trading partners; though "strenuously urged", that outlandish idea was rejected as "it would cause a fundamental disturbance" (you bet, imagine how Spain and the Dutch would react).
More bad news: Piero says Colbert is lobbying the king to let Clarendon return. Seriously? Does he understand how radioactive is the disgraced former Lord Chancellor? The latter, after boucing all over France and supposedly being kicked out to far Lorraine, is now in Montpellier - which should be a lovely exile at this time of year, but from where he "succeeded in persuading" Louis XIV that, back in London, he could be, er, "advantageous" to French interests.
And to top it all, and with an eye on the plague news from Rouen that Sarah relayed yesterday, "it is stated that the death of some servants of the Ambassador Colbert has no other origin than the arrival at his house of persons coming from the suspected parts". C'est le bouquet!
And the "Caveat in favour of Dr. Killigrew, that nothing pass concerning the rectory of St. Olave's, Southwark": Nice to get some news about the neighborhood from the State Papers for a change, rather than the usual Office stuff or geopolitics, but how frustratingly brief is that notice - we're not even told who it's from. If given in 2021 the caveat would likely be to protect the rectory from some predatory development (e.g., from that bloke on Seething Lane who's been looking all over to build a garage for his future coach). This being 1668, we phant'sy that it's Killigrew the theatre owner who wants to use it to store props. Recall that good buildings are scarce and exceedingly in demand in post-Fire central London, and there's construction projects all around, too. Maybe someone more savvy on the church's history will know?
Anyway, the rectory did survive whatever the caveat was about. So did its relief of St. Olave, with a great big axe in hand and trampling a fallen king - check it out at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/210…, and wonder what impure thoughts it may have given Sam, who had seen Charles I's head roll on the floor of the Banqueting House (he did, didn't he) if he passed it on his way to Another Dull Sermon.
A note: the church's website (https://saintolave.com) says that its Sunday service (at 11 am BST) is currently broadcast on Zoom, allowing Pepsyans from Tokyo to Tierra del Fuego to attend like they're Sam (sermon any good today?) And, speaking of the rector, on this very day the rectory's current tenant, the Rev'd Canon Arani Sen, has (re-) posted a thoughtful Reflection on Sam and the plague (at https://saintolave.com/news-item/…)
The French privateers taking 80 British vessels last month: We are much intrigued. Nothing of this surfaced in either the colonial papers, but of course it's not a comprehensive record of everything that passed, and communication with the colonies can easily take over a month. Maybe in the Gazette? We're still behind in our stack of Gazettes.
More to the point, it's puzzling because, right now in 1668, the French and English privateers generally work hand-in-hand against Spain. Henry Morgan, in the huge fleet he assembled earlier in the year for the raids against Spain to keep it from taking Jamaica, had 200 Frenchmen (his after-action report is linked to an annotation we made yesterday, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) And it's not just the privateers - the co-operation is State policy at the highest levels, France's great Peace with Spain be damned. France's rationale was that Spain, in denying all access to its own colonies, infringed on freedom of navigation; also, as a pirate might tell us before making us walk the ol' plank, "we're not in Europe here".
This will soon change. Next year, in June 1669, Louis XIV will ask for a review on whether to keep supporting the French privateers at Tortuga (his letter, in French, is at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/amp…) Tortuga, a small island of some infamy that's close to Jamaica, was full of English privateers who kept an eye on the colony that Admiral Penn helped conquer. It will all start to fall apart in 1670 when Charles will sign the treaty of Madrid to make peace with Spain in the Caribbean, but for now the partnership is quite real and profitable. A fascinating source on this is "The Economic and Military Impact of Privateers and Pirates on Britain’s Rise as a World Power", a recent MA thesis by Trevor John Whitaker that is available at https://repository.asu.edu/attach…
So what about these 80 vessels? It could be out-of-work Ostenders, now doing their own thing against all comers in the Channel, but if so it seems a lot, and is sure to show up in the Gazette; besides the Ostenders weren't some freewheeling pirates either, and Ostend is now one of the Flemish ports which France owns and controls. Or, if they were taken in the Caribbean, it could have something to do with a split between Morgan and his French crews, who became disaffected over the meagre loot they got from the sack of Puerto Principe (in Cuba) in March, and because Morgan hung one of their mates after one drunken fight too many. Morgan's bio at Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen…) which on these events is sourced to the later memoirs of a French Morgan-friend-turned-enemy named Exquemelin, says the French returned to Tortuga. It still seems unlikely that the "positions open" notice board there would have included a lot of jobs against British ships.
Indeed, it is. It was but recent, so we thought the cross-referencing superfluous, and nothing but Mr. Pepys' own closet being so Well-Ordered as this website, entries are always conveniently found with the search box. But you can never cross-reference enough.
Recall our discussion of a few days ago, on the ongoing tiff with the French concerning the Caribbean colony of St. Christopher, for which the frogs ask that various outstanding costs be paid them before it's devolved back to the Crown under the treaty of Breda. The solution was expected to come, like so many Prodigies, from M. Colbert the French ambassador.
His Excellency has now obliged, with a letter soberly labelled "M. Colbert to the King of Great Britain". Interesting in itself, as it's not so often that a document emerges from Leicester House (the letter is No. 1840 at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) We learn from him that the ideas floated in late July, of just selling or trading off the damn island, were in fact "approved by his Majesty and Council", and are reassured that, to France, this "seems most proper" indeed.
But also that it would be fine "that the French be reimbursed their charges for keeping and clothing the English prisoners in the islands belonging to the French King", as the French governor had demanded, because, in fact, "Lord Willoughby", the British governor of Barbados, had already "engaged his word that satisfaction should be made". We didn't know that. Very noble and gentlemanly on Willoughby's part. And, given how the rest of government was left to pick up the pieces, also, apparently, a total blank check he handed the French - but what's more aristocratic than a blank check?
From the same quarters, we can't resist anyone wishing for a bit more Action to check out paper No. 1838: It's a long after-action report, on recent rampage against the Spanish to keep them from grabbing Jamaica, from Henry Morgan. Aye, the pyrate. Well, former pirate, given how he's a privateer and "Admiral Morgan" now, so he has to write reports just like Sam, which pyrats don't have to do.
On the inns not having change: Yea, but they would have shillings - one-fifth of a crown. Sam hands them over aplenty when visiting taverns, and Charles mills them almost every year. At around 5.5 grams, they would come to the same weight in silver, but now it's 200,000 coins to distribute - no way.
How much is a pint in Portsmouth anyway? This website (https://footguards.tripod.com/08H…) which lists prices for the purpose of accurately re-enacting the mid-1700s, says fourpence (1/15th of a crown, if we're not mistaken) for a quart (0.9 liter). A study in the Economic History Review (doi:10.1111/1468-0289.00167) estimates 1 penny for a quart in the early 17th century.
So, if you're from out of town and can't use the tokens, bring some friends, or pay a round, or drink your 15 to 60 liters, because sorry guv, I don't have change on a crown. Right, guys?
In today's mailbag there was also one letter, packed with action and that would break our Venetian friend's heart if he knew. S.P. Dom. Car. II. 245 No. 200 in the State Paper's cryptic numbering, it's a "certificate" dated September 7 by a merchant, Henry Rowe, and officers of two ships, the Monmouth and the Princess.
It shows England to be so notoriously friendly to the Turks, that the ships of other nations hide in its convoys and pretend to be English when crossing the Med. But sometimes it doesn't work - true English blood just can't be faked, what. On September 3, the two English vessels took a Portuguese ship under their wing, "and lent the captain an ancient and vanes [English flags] and 6 men to answer the hail in English". They also "advis[ed] him to take his images and crosses from his stern, and paint it black to disguise it, but this he neglected to do".
And so five Turkish vessels showed up, the Portuguese captain and his men suddenly remembered all this stuff displayed on the stern, and panicked and started jumping out. Those left aboard ended up striking down their false flags and surrendering - quite possibly for a new career on the Sultan's galleys - while the two English captains hurriedly retrieved their men and the Turks advised them not to play these games.
This mess was apparently one too many for the Levant Company, which tomorrow (Sept. 8) will write a flurry of letters - also referencing what may have been another flap involving "the Leghorn vessel" - to its staff in Constantinople, Smyrna and Aleppo, on how "No foreign ship is in future to be taken under English protection, the small advantage of the duties [ah, so it wasn't free] not compensating the dangers".
And yes, Tonyel, there is absolutely a film script in there (or even several). Killing someone, as most of the literature on time machines invites you to do, has got to be the least interesting use to which you can put them.
In the same vein Piero also learned that Colbert has offered that France and England be exclusive trading partners ("That the trade of the two kingdoms shall be common and reciprocal, to the exclusion of every other nation, so that what is produced in France shall be transported by Englishmen only and that only Frenchmen shall have the exportation of goods from this country"), which seems just fanciful decoration for more practical proposals - such as, second bombshell, "the Most Christian [Louis XIV] offering to buy the fortress of Tanger for cash down". He reminds the Senate that "they [England] have begun the construction of a mole, at which they are at work incessantly, at an immense cost", to which Sam could attest. England's plan for Tangiers, he writes, is to make it a tollbooth for all ships entering the Mediterranean, similar to what the king of Denmark does for all traffic entering the Baltic through the Øresund, between Denmark and Sweden - ironically, at a price which has "caused some heart searching to the king here". If that's the plan, it looks nice on paper but our advice is - take the money! Whaddya think, Sam, good idea or not to sell Tangiers to the French?
Speaking of bags of money, our friend Piero Mocenigo, ambassador of Venice, had a bit of a bombshell to report yesterday.
Long story short: Piero, recently arrived in London, has been busy. His main job is to get Charles II to do his Christian duty and help liberate Candia (a Venetian colony in Crete) from its years-long siege by the Turks. Piero writes remarkably long and detailed cables, available at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…, and yesterday he's been particularly prolix (writing letters Nos. 338 to 340). Alas, on Candia he hasn't got much after three weeks of touring the grandees: "a ship (...) laden with salted meat", which "I have persuaded a rich merchant (...) of sending", is just about the only concrete result so far (this in No. 339). We'll keep a description of those efforts for another day; for now suffices to say that, as Sig. Mocenigo wearily concludes of the mercantile English, "all respect for religion is subordinated and they are moved solely by interests of state".
And now the bombshell: Like everyone else in London (including Sam), Sig. Mocenigo has been keenly monitoring Colbert's mysterious visit. "The ambassadors of Spain and Holland are closely watching every step and even gesture of the French ambassador", he writes (in letter No. 340). "It has been found that he has with him a great quantity of money, and although there is no certainty about the amount published, of 800,000 crowns, it must needs be considerable because the exchange of this mart for sending out money has fallen, and it will fall still further from the operation of the quantity of cash which has been brought in. This large capital is usually employed for the corruption of loyalty and to buy individuals, and it seemed that in large part it was to be distributed in continuing pensions to divers suitable persons whom the king of France tries to keep well disposed here to the interests of the Most Christian crown."
That's the headline: "France buys England". Yea, £200,000 would buy loyalties. From memory, it's around half of the State budget, and 50 times what Sandwich spent on his years-long embassy in Madrid. In another message on August 17 Piero had also noted that Colbert's digs in Leicester House are rented for £700, an extravagant amount which one would expect, for whatever it's good for, goes to the pockets of the Earl of Leicester. Louis XIV means business, does nothing by half, and is bulldozing his way into cash-strapped England, which struggles so much to pay for its excellent Navy and shipyards.
How many guards and how many carts to move 10,000/. from London to Portsmouth? Always a good question; imagine what one could do with those letters and a good time machine. We don't know in what coin the money will be delivered but, if we assume it's in the current (Charles II) coinage, this study (https://www.britnumsoc.org/public…) the first which Mr. Google proposes on the topic (and yes, it's from 1919) suggests that as of 1668 the most abundant was silver crowns, worth one-quarter of a pound. We also don't know how much the workers are paid but it seems a sensible denomination for a bulk payment - if still quite large, let's hope the taverns have plenty of change.
Quick check at https://coinparade.co.uk/crowns: the 1662 crown (and later issues) weighs 29.45 grams. So it's 1,178 kg. In, perhaps, around 200 bags of 5 kg each - our sturdy guards can haul heavier bags, and heavier bags are harder to steal, but more at risk of breaking open (whoops). Surely they're not hauled in carts. The loot could all sensibly fit in a few coaches, perhaps armored and surrounded by fierce musketeers, or camouflaged with peeling paint to look poor, with the guards dressed as ugly nuns. Either way, it seems a bit much for the highwaymen, who are many but seem to come in ones and twos rather than in big Robin Hood bands. Better to pick out the drunk yardmen in a few days.
Anyway, it's about time. Another quick check, of the State Papers, show the £10k first surface in the current volume as authorized back in March, and the wheels took six months to turn.
For several weeks now, the Gazette, at the end of page 2 where the good stuff often is, has printed an Advertisement from the Lord Commissioners of the Treasury, to invite "all Receivers and other Accountants", and all Collectors, to show up, on Tuesdays at 7 of the morning or on Thursdays at 3 of the afternoon, to account for the taxes they have Collected, or (for the Receivers), received from the Collectors. So far, so good, in a system where of course tax collection is outsourced to private gentlemen.
Except, the notices pertained to recovering, among many taxes, "the one Moneths Tax from the 29 of September 1660" and "from the First of July 1661". That's right, money collected as long as 8 years ago. Admittedly those were still unsettled years, but the Collectors were still "admonished (...) to take care forthwith to pay all such Moneys to the Receivers as they have in their hands", or else.
Now, Gazette No. 281, containing items dated through July 31, must be hitting the streets today, and the series comes to an end with this page 2 ad: "Whereas Advertisement hath been several times given to the Receivers of His Majesties' Money, that they should without delay pay into His Majesties' Exchequer all such Moneys as were remaining in their hand, and apply themselves with diligence to their respective Auditors", &c. &c. &c., "very many of them have neither done the one nor the other", and so the Treasury will be cracking down.
Thus is exposed one of the reasons why Sam can't pay the bills, apart from all the demands placed on the money pipe, and the Realm's sorry condition post-Fire/war/plague: The tax collectors have kept the loot for themselves, unmolested since the Restoration, to fund their coaches and manor houses. Sam would surely not have needed the Gazette to know this but might still have nodded at the display. He also thinks the lord Treasurers are unusually competent, for a Commission. So will they succeed? Why, perhaps the Treasury will seize some of those coaches and auction them cheap ...
And that's the status right now: It's all in the bulging saddlebags of things to negotiate with dear brother Charles II which Charles Colbert has brought to London. Is it such a tragedy? St. Albans isn't so sure, actually, as in his letter of July 15 he noted that "even when they [the French] shall execute fully the Treaty of Breda it will be very costly to us before we can be re-established, and after without much cost more, be not much the better for being re-established", in particular because the English planters have resettled all over the Caribbean. A possible solution, handed out by some unnamed French official and which St. Albans relays on July 28 in another memo to Arlington: "either a change for some of their islands for our part of St. Christopher's or the buying it with their money". The Most Christian not being above just paying his way out of problems, and Colbert having bigger fish to fry in London than cost estimates for jail food and a few thatched huts.
Things are never simple in the colonies, what with those hurricanoes, freewheeling governors and colonels building their own kingdomes, fractious planters, the constant threat of fevers and Indians (the latter often grown quite good at playing one colonial power against another), and the slow and complicated communication between the islands and with faraway Europe. This is all so impossible to manage, you have to wonder if these colonies will still be around in a century; and all this so the Pepys of the world can put sugar in their coffee.
Lambarte also remarked, in his letter to HM, that St. Christopher wasn't just some confetti but "once resettled (...) will put a check on all the French in America". Perhaps. The English are also not blameless; while all this aggravation is going on with the French, Charles II was coming close to firing Willoughby for letting his son, who had been appointed to run Suriname after it swung from Dutch to English rule, refuse to return it to the Dutch under the same treaty of Breda, then return it only after having trashed the place (he even burned a windmill, not a nice thing to do to the Dutch).
And so Charles took a new quill and wrote to Loouie, sometime in June (No. 1777 in the State Papers' colonial series). Ambassador St. Albans delivered the letter on June 30, and was told by the Most Christian himself that the Most Christian "did not use to break his word, and should less do it to the King [of England] than to anybody; that it was to be presumed that some mistake risen by the absence of La Barre, the Governor, is the cause of the delay". Isn't that cute. Why, the Most Christian was almost flustered at being so let down by his people.
But even so, there's still all these technical details, the cost estimates and all that. So, in a letter of July 15 to Arlington, St. Albans now relays from M. de Lionne - Loouis' foreign minister - "that the French King desires his Majesty [of England] not to send the new orders for restitution to M. De la Barre until M. Colbert has laid before his Majesty all that is necessary for the execution of the Treaty, otherwise it is feared that De la Barre might not execute even these last orders".
Louis XIV has some nerve! Yes he does, doesn't he. It comes with being the Sun King.
But the St. Christopher problem is more complicated than what Mr. Pocock has picked up in Yarmouth, and has already escalated, twice, to their Majesties' level. It's one of the main diplomatic actions right now, and worth elaborating upon. Just to skim the flood of ink and letters in the colonial archives (explore them at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) Loouie did agree under the Treaty of Breda to return St. C as long ago as 1667, and on May 2 last, William Lord Willoughby, governor of Barbadoes and England's main man in the Caribbean, related in a formal protest that when the restitution order were served on M. le Chevalier De St. Laurence, French Governor of St. Christopher, "he refusing to take [them in hand, the order] was laid down before him on a chair". How rude.
On May 30 Willoughby attached to a report to Arlington, a memo from M. Lefebre De la Barre, French governor of Guyana, who (as summarized) had explained that "the English must first reimburse the price of the purchases of the French, as well as amelioration, as agreed at the English Court, besides the food of the [English] prisoners, which amounts to great sums", noting further that the houses "built by the French since the hurricane belong of right to them, and as to movables they also belong to the French by the right of war". And a further complication concerning slaves: "if the English demand those taken at St. Christopher's, the French have equal right to demand those taken at Cayenne and sold at Barbadoes, but if any difficulty arises about this article it can be settled by their masters in Europe."
On June 25 in another memo which (on June 28) a colonel Lambarte passed on to Charles II, De la Barre added "that he cannot put his Majesty of England or his Commissioners in possession of that part of St. Christopher's stipulated to be returned to the English unless all the articles of the Treaty concerning this country are at the same time executed", and added a few specifics to the horse-trading: "that restitution be made for things taken since the cessation of hostilities, vizt., 39 negroes [sic, sorry about that] and 3,000 florins in plate and moveables from Cayenne by Henry Willoughby; 12 negroes retained by the Governor of Montserrat ; eight negroes taken from Martinique; and a barque of the West India Company; and that reimbursement be made for the price of dwellings sold by the English to the French, with the ameliorations that have been made according to the estimation of Commissioners named on either side." So now experts have to be appointed to estimate costs, too.
Regarding the State Papers, first allow us to direct a Disapproving Frown at the University of London, which indeed seems to have seen fit to paywall a 150-year-old HMSO compilation of centuries-old government papers, now in PRO archives, that should be about as copyright-free as the Bible. Just to butter the toast on both sides, the website also sells advertising (one ad invites us to "discover the stocking evidence of Jesus' resurrection!")
But OK, they're not the fattest piece of toast around, at £35 their annual subscription is still cheaper than what many academic publishers want for a peek at a single article, and here are two Dry-Your-Tears caveats: First, some of the collections which the UoL toiled so hard to double-key-digitize are still free to access (the publick, in the form of the Arts and Humanities Council, having paid for it), including Pepys-years archives on Venice and the colonies that are rich in crunchy nuggets and not readily available elsewhere.
Second, there's a free Google Books version of the State Papers. It's a bit more awkward to use because each volume has to be fished out from their vast catalog, the scans cannot be cut-and-pasted, and lately there seems to be a bug that only makes them (at least in our case) readable in the Google Play Books application rather than straight on the website. But navigate all this and it works great and you can still get your fix - as a bonus, in a nice vintage font and with no scanning errors.
Today's dose includes letters in defense of the Dean of Chester, "attacked by the rage of calumny, by some mean spirits, as the dogs of Arcadia feared not to bark at the moon" - surely a quote deserving of reuse - and even a letter to Pepys, of the depressingly routine variety: Edward Byland "has done nothing in the musters", and (perhaps not unconnected) "wants a bill for his salary as deputy treasurer for 13 months". We can imagine Sam having a deep sigh at this one, and checking his minute watch - is it 4 o'clock yet?
The news of my being lost was very exaggerated. Truly I was on a secret Embassy to New Spain, occasioned by the Peace now ratified between the two Crowns and in parts whence sadly the Post hardly reaches. As you read this I should have taken passage back across the ocean Sea. Providence send that we should be spared by tempests and pyrates, and may God give me the strength to catch up with this huge bag of Gazettes and Papers.
Now, why did Williamson require all this research on the precedence of English vs. French kings and ambassadors? Of course who sits where matters a great deal to diplomats (just have a look at the group engravings from the recent G7 summit in Wales), and 'tis an Age when sea-captains risk starting the next war by shooting between each other's masts when they feel the other guy didn't lower his flag enough - why, 'tis not so long that the escorts of two Ambassadors slaughtered each other on the question of whose Excellency's coach should go first through a narrow street in Madrid (or was it Cracow, 'twas in the Gazette).
There is a lot to unpack in Dr. Jenkins' treatise, and the subtle implications which could be made from seating arrangements on the broader rights of all these intermarrying dynasties are beyond our immediate ability to puzzle, so we'll just remark on the context in which the doctor was sent to dust off his Albericus Gentilis. Monsieur Colbert is about to visit London, could this be part of the preparations? If so, how come the protocol needs to be researched, given all the routine, high-level contact between France and England? Are Charles and Louis planning a summit?
Interesting also that the Venetians are mentioned at length. Lodged as they are between the French and the Spaniards (in Naples), it's understandable that they won't pick sides in such quarrels, but note that, at this very time, France is making a big show of sending troops and money to help Venice and Christendom at Candia; on this background it would be piquant if the French made Turkish compliments part of their case (the Turks also might consider the left-hand seat insulting). England is, in deeds if not in words, rather pro-Turk, and so perhaps not in as good a posture in discussions on Candia, especially if it turns to whose religion is best or oldest.
By coincidence, and speaking of Ambassadors, the Gazette (No. 268, page 1) just reported that, on May 26, as part of making nice to the pope, the French Ambassador bringing notice of the late peace with Spain also informed His Holiness that "the King his Master hath conſented that the Pillar of Igominy erected in the late Popes time in memory of the affront offered by the Corſick soldiers to the then Ambassador the Duke de Crequy, ſhall be ſpeedily ſemolished". Crequy, who in 1662 had come to mediate in a nasty dispute between the Alexander VII's Corsican guards and those of a cardinal, had been rewarded with bullets in his coach, several servants killed and his house pulled down, in a bad case of an inter-guard tavern brawl spiralling out of control (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cor…) The gentry may be well-behaved enough, but then there's all these mercenaries in their entourage, ready to seize the least pretext to prove their loyalty and settle their own scores.
Comments
Second Reading
About Tuesday 15 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Penn's letter is indeed a rare example of the Admiral at work, but it should be entirely representative of what he does, which is, as "controller of victualling accounts", to nitpick over invoices which Sam has approved (see the job description at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Con…) What an exalting occupation, if you happen to not like the Clerk of the Acts very much; one even wonders if the enmity was known and played a role in Penn's appointment.
And so, today, when the whole office still quietly seethes over Sam's Great Letter - he ratted them out to HRH, then everyone had to think (argh) and write out a report with correct spelling and no inkspots (urgh) - Penn chooses to put his nose into, for instance, ships belonging to Sam's crony William Warren - check out his Encyclopedia entry (https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…) and decide if it's likely to be a random target.
This is followed by a bunch of open-ended queries which could require a lot of archive boxes to be dredged out and explored, indeed (if, that is, archive boxes had yet been invented). Provisions to *all* merchant ships to Barbadoes (and on what grounds, pray tell, do those have to be "stopped"?)
"Dead pursers". Sam shakes his head. "Sir", he tells Penn in the stiff tone reserved for him in particular, "I regret to inform your Lordship that this office, as may surprise any tourist who wanders in by accident, does not get a card when a purser, of which the King's Navy has hundreds, marries, or passes away. We're not their mommies".
Penn continues: "Sir, I also believe that some beverage wine was delivered to, er, some of those ships, would you have some records documenting that, Mr. *Clerk* [heavy emphasis]? Do feel free to say no, it's common knowledge that your record-keeping is, ah, sometimes a bit rushed. Which we understand, it's a lot of work to cram between plays..."
Recall that shambolic archiving was, from all that the other Commissioners had to say in their replies to the Great Letter, the only charge that stuck on Sam enough to make the Diary - and indeed, there are few worse insults you can aim at a bureaucrat.
A snicker from Sam: "Sir, you 'believe' that ships receive 'beverage wine'? Your belief is entirely correct; this has to show your keen naval expertise. In fact, *all* of His Majesty's vessels receive wine, and many other things besides. Care you to make your query more specific? My clerks are busy fellows, they do have 90,000 sailors to manage. And alas, we sometimes lose records to the rats that escape from your kitchen".
About Monday 14 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Piero, in his other letter of this day (No. 341), also continues to whine on how hard it is to get England to do anything about the siege of Candia. This time, it's that, after working so hard to get a public audience with Charles (he already had a private meeting where Charles made excuses, but obviously that's not what he's in London for), it all got cancelled when the court went on its tour of the provinces. Aaargh! Here, Piero flatters himself in thinking that it was all to dodge him: "It looks as if the absence of the Court is only to lose time for my offices to get a decision [on sending ships against the Turk] before the departure of the ships with the Dutch troops". The States have promised to send some, and Piero counted on one-upmanship by Charles; in your dreams only, amico mio.
His Venetian Excellency tells himself stories and he knows it: In his second letter (No. 342, mistakenly referenced in our preceding annotation as No. 340, sorry about that) he relates that the royal trip out of town was in part for the big-time ceremony where York was appointed Lord High Admiral, a sure sign this York has a big future (you betcha): "The duke of Hiorch has been declared General of the Cinque Ports".
Ha ha, the "duke of Hiorch". Has Piero ever seen his name in print, or does England keep its documents so jealously? We are tempted to put this together with this otherwise completely unrelated, but delightful, private letter which also appears in today's State Papers [S.P. Dom Car II. 246, No. 51]. The Papers' editors also thought it such a savoury piece of 17C style that they excerpted rather than summarized it. A "J. Aldrich" apparently offers to correct his uncle's lamentable orthograph: "for it grieves a man's heart to hear (besides the manifest damage that accrues to his Majesty's English from the reading of false spellings) how sadly people are forced, with great hazard to their own teeth and their friend's ears, to pick out of your letters such words as would challenge even Wales itself for harshness. I beg fair writing for the sake of the University your mother (...)"
On th' other hand, orthograph - what a strange modern notion, do you meane a ſingle Way of writing that should enſlave our Wits to some man's Rule? A sign of the Age, that young people should fancy Systems of that sort, but then, it's all about Systems and Classifications now, isn't it.
About Monday 14 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
In the State Papers written out today there is also this one, which gives us a rare glimpse into Leicester House, where France is splashing out on its extravagant embassy: "Privy seal for 30 tuns of wine, half French, half Spanish, for Sieur Colbert, the French Ambassador" [Entry Book 30, f.80b.]
Mon Dieu! A tun, Dr. Wikipedia informs us at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tun…, is 252 gallons, or 952 liters - so yes, that's over 28,000 liters which M. Colbert will have at his disposal to get his points across to visiting courtiers, console himself of diplomatic reversals, or (the King's wine tax being what it is) indulge in a li'l bit of business on the side if he (or his butler) should phant'sy that.
Today apparently, the claret would be more for consolation. Our friend Piero Mocenigo, the Venetian ambassador, favors us with two of his voluminous letters to the Doge and Senate; in one (No. 340, at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) he updates the intelligence he had provided a week ago (see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) on Colbert's proposals to King Charles. They included (a) selling Tangiers to France - alas, "money has not sufficed to remove the obstacles" to that, Piero writes (either the price wasn't right, or Charles ain't what you all think); and (b) to make France and England mutually exclusive trading partners; though "strenuously urged", that outlandish idea was rejected as "it would cause a fundamental disturbance" (you bet, imagine how Spain and the Dutch would react).
More bad news: Piero says Colbert is lobbying the king to let Clarendon return. Seriously? Does he understand how radioactive is the disgraced former Lord Chancellor? The latter, after boucing all over France and supposedly being kicked out to far Lorraine, is now in Montpellier - which should be a lovely exile at this time of year, but from where he "succeeded in persuading" Louis XIV that, back in London, he could be, er, "advantageous" to French interests.
And to top it all, and with an eye on the plague news from Rouen that Sarah relayed yesterday, "it is stated that the death of some servants of the Ambassador Colbert has no other origin than the arrival at his house of persons coming from the suspected parts". C'est le bouquet!
About Saturday 12 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
And the "Caveat in favour of Dr. Killigrew, that nothing pass concerning the rectory of St. Olave's, Southwark": Nice to get some news about the neighborhood from the State Papers for a change, rather than the usual Office stuff or geopolitics, but how frustratingly brief is that notice - we're not even told who it's from. If given in 2021 the caveat would likely be to protect the rectory from some predatory development (e.g., from that bloke on Seething Lane who's been looking all over to build a garage for his future coach). This being 1668, we phant'sy that it's Killigrew the theatre owner who wants to use it to store props. Recall that good buildings are scarce and exceedingly in demand in post-Fire central London, and there's construction projects all around, too. Maybe someone more savvy on the church's history will know?
Anyway, the rectory did survive whatever the caveat was about. So did its relief of St. Olave, with a great big axe in hand and trampling a fallen king - check it out at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/210…, and wonder what impure thoughts it may have given Sam, who had seen Charles I's head roll on the floor of the Banqueting House (he did, didn't he) if he passed it on his way to Another Dull Sermon.
A note: the church's website (https://saintolave.com) says that its Sunday service (at 11 am BST) is currently broadcast on Zoom, allowing Pepsyans from Tokyo to Tierra del Fuego to attend like they're Sam (sermon any good today?) And, speaking of the rector, on this very day the rectory's current tenant, the Rev'd Canon Arani Sen, has (re-) posted a thoughtful Reflection on Sam and the plague (at https://saintolave.com/news-item/…)
About Saturday 12 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
The French privateers taking 80 British vessels last month: We are much intrigued. Nothing of this surfaced in either the colonial papers, but of course it's not a comprehensive record of everything that passed, and communication with the colonies can easily take over a month. Maybe in the Gazette? We're still behind in our stack of Gazettes.
More to the point, it's puzzling because, right now in 1668, the French and English privateers generally work hand-in-hand against Spain. Henry Morgan, in the huge fleet he assembled earlier in the year for the raids against Spain to keep it from taking Jamaica, had 200 Frenchmen (his after-action report is linked to an annotation we made yesterday, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) And it's not just the privateers - the co-operation is State policy at the highest levels, France's great Peace with Spain be damned. France's rationale was that Spain, in denying all access to its own colonies, infringed on freedom of navigation; also, as a pirate might tell us before making us walk the ol' plank, "we're not in Europe here".
This will soon change. Next year, in June 1669, Louis XIV will ask for a review on whether to keep supporting the French privateers at Tortuga (his letter, in French, is at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/amp…) Tortuga, a small island of some infamy that's close to Jamaica, was full of English privateers who kept an eye on the colony that Admiral Penn helped conquer. It will all start to fall apart in 1670 when Charles will sign the treaty of Madrid to make peace with Spain in the Caribbean, but for now the partnership is quite real and profitable. A fascinating source on this is "The Economic and Military Impact of Privateers and Pirates on Britain’s Rise as a World Power", a recent MA thesis by Trevor John Whitaker that is available at https://repository.asu.edu/attach…
So what about these 80 vessels? It could be out-of-work Ostenders, now doing their own thing against all comers in the Channel, but if so it seems a lot, and is sure to show up in the Gazette; besides the Ostenders weren't some freewheeling pirates either, and Ostend is now one of the Flemish ports which France owns and controls. Or, if they were taken in the Caribbean, it could have something to do with a split between Morgan and his French crews, who became disaffected over the meagre loot they got from the sack of Puerto Principe (in Cuba) in March, and because Morgan hung one of their mates after one drunken fight too many. Morgan's bio at Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen…) which on these events is sourced to the later memoirs of a French Morgan-friend-turned-enemy named Exquemelin, says the French returned to Tortuga. It still seems unlikely that the "positions open" notice board there would have included a lot of jobs against British ships.
About Friday 11 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Indeed, it is. It was but recent, so we thought the cross-referencing superfluous, and nothing but Mr. Pepys' own closet being so Well-Ordered as this website, entries are always conveniently found with the search box. But you can never cross-reference enough.
About Friday 11 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Recall our discussion of a few days ago, on the ongoing tiff with the French concerning the Caribbean colony of St. Christopher, for which the frogs ask that various outstanding costs be paid them before it's devolved back to the Crown under the treaty of Breda. The solution was expected to come, like so many Prodigies, from M. Colbert the French ambassador.
His Excellency has now obliged, with a letter soberly labelled "M. Colbert to the King of Great Britain". Interesting in itself, as it's not so often that a document emerges from Leicester House (the letter is No. 1840 at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) We learn from him that the ideas floated in late July, of just selling or trading off the damn island, were in fact "approved by his Majesty and Council", and are reassured that, to France, this "seems most proper" indeed.
But also that it would be fine "that the French be reimbursed their charges for keeping and clothing the English prisoners in the islands belonging to the French King", as the French governor had demanded, because, in fact, "Lord Willoughby", the British governor of Barbados, had already "engaged his word that satisfaction should be made". We didn't know that. Very noble and gentlemanly on Willoughby's part. And, given how the rest of government was left to pick up the pieces, also, apparently, a total blank check he handed the French - but what's more aristocratic than a blank check?
From the same quarters, we can't resist anyone wishing for a bit more Action to check out paper No. 1838: It's a long after-action report, on recent rampage against the Spanish to keep them from grabbing Jamaica, from Henry Morgan. Aye, the pyrate. Well, former pirate, given how he's a privateer and "Admiral Morgan" now, so he has to write reports just like Sam, which pyrats don't have to do.
About Monday 7 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
On the inns not having change: Yea, but they would have shillings - one-fifth of a crown. Sam hands them over aplenty when visiting taverns, and Charles mills them almost every year. At around 5.5 grams, they would come to the same weight in silver, but now it's 200,000 coins to distribute - no way.
How much is a pint in Portsmouth anyway? This website (https://footguards.tripod.com/08H…) which lists prices for the purpose of accurately re-enacting the mid-1700s, says fourpence (1/15th of a crown, if we're not mistaken) for a quart (0.9 liter). A study in the Economic History Review (doi:10.1111/1468-0289.00167) estimates 1 penny for a quart in the early 17th century.
So, if you're from out of town and can't use the tokens, bring some friends, or pay a round, or drink your 15 to 60 liters, because sorry guv, I don't have change on a crown. Right, guys?
About Monday 7 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
In today's mailbag there was also one letter, packed with action and that would break our Venetian friend's heart if he knew. S.P. Dom. Car. II. 245 No. 200 in the State Paper's cryptic numbering, it's a "certificate" dated September 7 by a merchant, Henry Rowe, and officers of two ships, the Monmouth and the Princess.
It shows England to be so notoriously friendly to the Turks, that the ships of other nations hide in its convoys and pretend to be English when crossing the Med. But sometimes it doesn't work - true English blood just can't be faked, what. On September 3, the two English vessels took a Portuguese ship under their wing, "and lent the captain an ancient and vanes [English flags] and 6 men to answer the hail in English". They also "advis[ed] him to take his images and crosses from his stern, and paint it black to disguise it, but this he neglected to do".
And so five Turkish vessels showed up, the Portuguese captain and his men suddenly remembered all this stuff displayed on the stern, and panicked and started jumping out. Those left aboard ended up striking down their false flags and surrendering - quite possibly for a new career on the Sultan's galleys - while the two English captains hurriedly retrieved their men and the Turks advised them not to play these games.
This mess was apparently one too many for the Levant Company, which tomorrow (Sept. 8) will write a flurry of letters - also referencing what may have been another flap involving "the Leghorn vessel" - to its staff in Constantinople, Smyrna and Aleppo, on how "No foreign ship is in future to be taken under English protection, the small advantage of the duties [ah, so it wasn't free] not compensating the dangers".
About Monday 7 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
And yes, Tonyel, there is absolutely a film script in there (or even several). Killing someone, as most of the literature on time machines invites you to do, has got to be the least interesting use to which you can put them.
About Monday 7 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
In the same vein Piero also learned that Colbert has offered that France and England be exclusive trading partners ("That the trade of the two kingdoms shall be common and reciprocal, to the exclusion of every other nation, so that what is produced in France shall be transported by Englishmen only and that only Frenchmen shall have the exportation of goods from this country"), which seems just fanciful decoration for more practical proposals - such as, second bombshell, "the Most Christian [Louis XIV] offering to buy the fortress of Tanger for cash down". He reminds the Senate that "they [England] have begun the construction of a mole, at which they are at work incessantly, at an immense cost", to which Sam could attest. England's plan for Tangiers, he writes, is to make it a tollbooth for all ships entering the Mediterranean, similar to what the king of Denmark does for all traffic entering the Baltic through the Øresund, between Denmark and Sweden - ironically, at a price which has "caused some heart searching to the king here". If that's the plan, it looks nice on paper but our advice is - take the money! Whaddya think, Sam, good idea or not to sell Tangiers to the French?
About Monday 7 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Speaking of bags of money, our friend Piero Mocenigo, ambassador of Venice, had a bit of a bombshell to report yesterday.
Long story short: Piero, recently arrived in London, has been busy. His main job is to get Charles II to do his Christian duty and help liberate Candia (a Venetian colony in Crete) from its years-long siege by the Turks. Piero writes remarkably long and detailed cables, available at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…, and yesterday he's been particularly prolix (writing letters Nos. 338 to 340). Alas, on Candia he hasn't got much after three weeks of touring the grandees: "a ship (...) laden with salted meat", which "I have persuaded a rich merchant (...) of sending", is just about the only concrete result so far (this in No. 339). We'll keep a description of those efforts for another day; for now suffices to say that, as Sig. Mocenigo wearily concludes of the mercantile English, "all respect for religion is subordinated and they are moved solely by interests of state".
And now the bombshell: Like everyone else in London (including Sam), Sig. Mocenigo has been keenly monitoring Colbert's mysterious visit. "The ambassadors of Spain and Holland are closely watching every step and even gesture of the French ambassador", he writes (in letter No. 340). "It has been found that he has with him a great quantity of money, and although there is no certainty about the amount published, of 800,000 crowns, it must needs be considerable because the exchange of this mart for sending out money has fallen, and it will fall still further from the operation of the quantity of cash which has been brought in. This large capital is usually employed for the corruption of loyalty and to buy individuals, and it seemed that in large part it was to be distributed in continuing pensions to divers suitable persons whom the king of France tries to keep well disposed here to the interests of the Most Christian crown."
That's the headline: "France buys England". Yea, £200,000 would buy loyalties. From memory, it's around half of the State budget, and 50 times what Sandwich spent on his years-long embassy in Madrid. In another message on August 17 Piero had also noted that Colbert's digs in Leicester House are rented for £700, an extravagant amount which one would expect, for whatever it's good for, goes to the pockets of the Earl of Leicester. Louis XIV means business, does nothing by half, and is bulldozing his way into cash-strapped England, which struggles so much to pay for its excellent Navy and shipyards.
About Monday 7 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
How many guards and how many carts to move 10,000/. from London to Portsmouth? Always a good question; imagine what one could do with those letters and a good time machine. We don't know in what coin the money will be delivered but, if we assume it's in the current (Charles II) coinage, this study (https://www.britnumsoc.org/public…) the first which Mr. Google proposes on the topic (and yes, it's from 1919) suggests that as of 1668 the most abundant was silver crowns, worth one-quarter of a pound. We also don't know how much the workers are paid but it seems a sensible denomination for a bulk payment - if still quite large, let's hope the taverns have plenty of change.
Quick check at https://coinparade.co.uk/crowns: the 1662 crown (and later issues) weighs 29.45 grams. So it's 1,178 kg. In, perhaps, around 200 bags of 5 kg each - our sturdy guards can haul heavier bags, and heavier bags are harder to steal, but more at risk of breaking open (whoops). Surely they're not hauled in carts. The loot could all sensibly fit in a few coaches, perhaps armored and surrounded by fierce musketeers, or camouflaged with peeling paint to look poor, with the guards dressed as ugly nuns. Either way, it seems a bit much for the highwaymen, who are many but seem to come in ones and twos rather than in big Robin Hood bands. Better to pick out the drunk yardmen in a few days.
Anyway, it's about time. Another quick check, of the State Papers, show the £10k first surface in the current volume as authorized back in March, and the wheels took six months to turn.
About Saturday 1 August 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
For several weeks now, the Gazette, at the end of page 2 where the good stuff often is, has printed an Advertisement from the Lord Commissioners of the Treasury, to invite "all Receivers and other Accountants", and all Collectors, to show up, on Tuesdays at 7 of the morning or on Thursdays at 3 of the afternoon, to account for the taxes they have Collected, or (for the Receivers), received from the Collectors. So far, so good, in a system where of course tax collection is outsourced to private gentlemen.
Except, the notices pertained to recovering, among many taxes, "the one Moneths Tax from the 29 of September 1660" and "from the First of July 1661". That's right, money collected as long as 8 years ago. Admittedly those were still unsettled years, but the Collectors were still "admonished (...) to take care forthwith to pay all such Moneys to the Receivers as they have in their hands", or else.
Now, Gazette No. 281, containing items dated through July 31, must be hitting the streets today, and the series comes to an end with this page 2 ad: "Whereas Advertisement hath been several times given to the Receivers of His Majesties' Money, that they should without delay pay into His Majesties' Exchequer all such Moneys as were remaining in their hand, and apply themselves with diligence to their respective Auditors", &c. &c. &c., "very many of them have neither done the one nor the other", and so the Treasury will be cracking down.
Thus is exposed one of the reasons why Sam can't pay the bills, apart from all the demands placed on the money pipe, and the Realm's sorry condition post-Fire/war/plague: The tax collectors have kept the loot for themselves, unmolested since the Restoration, to fund their coaches and manor houses. Sam would surely not have needed the Gazette to know this but might still have nodded at the display. He also thinks the lord Treasurers are unusually competent, for a Commission. So will they succeed? Why, perhaps the Treasury will seize some of those coaches and auction them cheap ...
About Saturday 5 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
And that's the status right now: It's all in the bulging saddlebags of things to negotiate with dear brother Charles II which Charles Colbert has brought to London. Is it such a tragedy? St. Albans isn't so sure, actually, as in his letter of July 15 he noted that "even when they [the French] shall execute fully the Treaty of Breda it will be very costly to us before we can be re-established, and after without much cost more, be not much the better for being re-established", in particular because the English planters have resettled all over the Caribbean. A possible solution, handed out by some unnamed French official and which St. Albans relays on July 28 in another memo to Arlington: "either a change for some of their islands for our part of St. Christopher's or the buying it with their money". The Most Christian not being above just paying his way out of problems, and Colbert having bigger fish to fry in London than cost estimates for jail food and a few thatched huts.
About Saturday 5 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Things are never simple in the colonies, what with those hurricanoes, freewheeling governors and colonels building their own kingdomes, fractious planters, the constant threat of fevers and Indians (the latter often grown quite good at playing one colonial power against another), and the slow and complicated communication between the islands and with faraway Europe. This is all so impossible to manage, you have to wonder if these colonies will still be around in a century; and all this so the Pepys of the world can put sugar in their coffee.
Lambarte also remarked, in his letter to HM, that St. Christopher wasn't just some confetti but "once resettled (...) will put a check on all the French in America". Perhaps. The English are also not blameless; while all this aggravation is going on with the French, Charles II was coming close to firing Willoughby for letting his son, who had been appointed to run Suriname after it swung from Dutch to English rule, refuse to return it to the Dutch under the same treaty of Breda, then return it only after having trashed the place (he even burned a windmill, not a nice thing to do to the Dutch).
And so Charles took a new quill and wrote to Loouie, sometime in June (No. 1777 in the State Papers' colonial series). Ambassador St. Albans delivered the letter on June 30, and was told by the Most Christian himself that the Most Christian "did not use to break his word, and should less do it to the King [of England] than to anybody; that it was to be presumed that some mistake risen by the absence of La Barre, the Governor, is the cause of the delay". Isn't that cute. Why, the Most Christian was almost flustered at being so let down by his people.
But even so, there's still all these technical details, the cost estimates and all that. So, in a letter of July 15 to Arlington, St. Albans now relays from M. de Lionne - Loouis' foreign minister - "that the French King desires his Majesty [of England] not to send the new orders for restitution to M. De la Barre until M. Colbert has laid before his Majesty all that is necessary for the execution of the Treaty, otherwise it is feared that De la Barre might not execute even these last orders".
About Saturday 5 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Louis XIV has some nerve! Yes he does, doesn't he. It comes with being the Sun King.
But the St. Christopher problem is more complicated than what Mr. Pocock has picked up in Yarmouth, and has already escalated, twice, to their Majesties' level. It's one of the main diplomatic actions right now, and worth elaborating upon. Just to skim the flood of ink and letters in the colonial archives (explore them at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) Loouie did agree under the Treaty of Breda to return St. C as long ago as 1667, and on May 2 last, William Lord Willoughby, governor of Barbadoes and England's main man in the Caribbean, related in a formal protest that when the restitution order were served on M. le Chevalier De St. Laurence, French Governor of St. Christopher, "he refusing to take [them in hand, the order] was laid down before him on a chair". How rude.
On May 30 Willoughby attached to a report to Arlington, a memo from M. Lefebre De la Barre, French governor of Guyana, who (as summarized) had explained that "the English must first reimburse the price of the purchases of the French, as well as amelioration, as agreed at the English Court, besides the food of the [English] prisoners, which amounts to great sums", noting further that the houses "built by the French since the hurricane belong of right to them, and as to movables they also belong to the French by the right of war". And a further complication concerning slaves: "if the English demand those taken at St. Christopher's, the French have equal right to demand those taken at Cayenne and sold at Barbadoes, but if any difficulty arises about this article it can be settled by their masters in Europe."
On June 25 in another memo which (on June 28) a colonel Lambarte passed on to Charles II, De la Barre added "that he cannot put his Majesty of England or his Commissioners in possession of that part of St. Christopher's stipulated to be returned to the English unless all the articles of the Treaty concerning this country are at the same time executed", and added a few specifics to the horse-trading: "that restitution be made for things taken since the cessation of hostilities, vizt., 39 negroes [sic, sorry about that] and 3,000 florins in plate and moveables from Cayenne by Henry Willoughby; 12 negroes retained by the Governor of Montserrat ; eight negroes taken from Martinique; and a barque of the West India Company; and that reimbursement be made for the price of dwellings sold by the English to the French, with the ameliorations that have been made according to the estimation of Commissioners named on either side." So now experts have to be appointed to estimate costs, too.
About Tuesday 1 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Regarding the State Papers, first allow us to direct a Disapproving Frown at the University of London, which indeed seems to have seen fit to paywall a 150-year-old HMSO compilation of centuries-old government papers, now in PRO archives, that should be about as copyright-free as the Bible. Just to butter the toast on both sides, the website also sells advertising (one ad invites us to "discover the stocking evidence of Jesus' resurrection!")
But OK, they're not the fattest piece of toast around, at £35 their annual subscription is still cheaper than what many academic publishers want for a peek at a single article, and here are two Dry-Your-Tears caveats: First, some of the collections which the UoL toiled so hard to double-key-digitize are still free to access (the publick, in the form of the Arts and Humanities Council, having paid for it), including Pepys-years archives on Venice and the colonies that are rich in crunchy nuggets and not readily available elsewhere.
Second, there's a free Google Books version of the State Papers. It's a bit more awkward to use because each volume has to be fished out from their vast catalog, the scans cannot be cut-and-pasted, and lately there seems to be a bug that only makes them (at least in our case) readable in the Google Play Books application rather than straight on the website. But navigate all this and it works great and you can still get your fix - as a bonus, in a nice vintage font and with no scanning errors.
The current volume, covering November 1667 through September 1668, is at https://play.google.com/books/rea….
Today's dose includes letters in defense of the Dean of Chester, "attacked by the rage of calumny, by some mean spirits, as the dogs of Arcadia feared not to bark at the moon" - surely a quote deserving of reuse - and even a letter to Pepys, of the depressingly routine variety: Edward Byland "has done nothing in the musters", and (perhaps not unconnected) "wants a bill for his salary as deputy treasurer for 13 months". We can imagine Sam having a deep sigh at this one, and checking his minute watch - is it 4 o'clock yet?
About Sunday 14 January 1665/66
Stephane Chenard • Link
The news of my being lost was very exaggerated. Truly I was on a secret Embassy to New Spain, occasioned by the Peace now ratified between the two Crowns and in parts whence sadly the Post hardly reaches. As you read this I should have taken passage back across the ocean Sea. Providence send that we should be spared by tempests and pyrates, and may God give me the strength to catch up with this huge bag of Gazettes and Papers.
About Thursday 25 June 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Now, why did Williamson require all this research on the precedence of English vs. French kings and ambassadors? Of course who sits where matters a great deal to diplomats (just have a look at the group engravings from the recent G7 summit in Wales), and 'tis an Age when sea-captains risk starting the next war by shooting between each other's masts when they feel the other guy didn't lower his flag enough - why, 'tis not so long that the escorts of two Ambassadors slaughtered each other on the question of whose Excellency's coach should go first through a narrow street in Madrid (or was it Cracow, 'twas in the Gazette).
There is a lot to unpack in Dr. Jenkins' treatise, and the subtle implications which could be made from seating arrangements on the broader rights of all these intermarrying dynasties are beyond our immediate ability to puzzle, so we'll just remark on the context in which the doctor was sent to dust off his Albericus Gentilis. Monsieur Colbert is about to visit London, could this be part of the preparations? If so, how come the protocol needs to be researched, given all the routine, high-level contact between France and England? Are Charles and Louis planning a summit?
Interesting also that the Venetians are mentioned at length. Lodged as they are between the French and the Spaniards (in Naples), it's understandable that they won't pick sides in such quarrels, but note that, at this very time, France is making a big show of sending troops and money to help Venice and Christendom at Candia; on this background it would be piquant if the French made Turkish compliments part of their case (the Turks also might consider the left-hand seat insulting). England is, in deeds if not in words, rather pro-Turk, and so perhaps not in as good a posture in discussions on Candia, especially if it turns to whose religion is best or oldest.
By coincidence, and speaking of Ambassadors, the Gazette (No. 268, page 1) just reported that, on May 26, as part of making nice to the pope, the French Ambassador bringing notice of the late peace with Spain also informed His Holiness that "the King his Master hath conſented that the Pillar of Igominy erected in the late Popes time in memory of the affront offered by the Corſick soldiers to the then Ambassador the Duke de Crequy, ſhall be ſpeedily ſemolished". Crequy, who in 1662 had come to mediate in a nasty dispute between the Alexander VII's Corsican guards and those of a cardinal, had been rewarded with bullets in his coach, several servants killed and his house pulled down, in a bad case of an inter-guard tavern brawl spiralling out of control (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cor…) The gentry may be well-behaved enough, but then there's all these mercenaries in their entourage, ready to seize the least pretext to prove their loyalty and settle their own scores.