And now that the beancounters have their teeth into the Navy, you can expect more why-this and why-that. Today Sir G. Downing (secretary to the Treasury Commision) sent an invitation "to the Navy Commissioners (...) to speak with them on Monday [the 9th] to know why they charged so great a sum in their weekly credits due to the seamen" (State Papers No. 2, https://play.google.com/books/rea…)
Every question, if answered, can lead to another question, especially from titled gentlemen who, themselves, happily live on credit they repay once a year, if ever and, for the luckiest of them, get paid for so-called "charges" by a government that can always press for what it cannot buy ("do you really have to pay the seamen? I mean, they get food and board, no?") But, apart from not enjoying the liberties of that plane of existence, Sam is also a perfectionist, he likes the books to be exactly balanced and people to do their jobs and be paid on time. One wonders if Coventry, Duncombe and the Admiral, repairing to a tavern after today's hearing, couldn't have had this exchange:
Coventry: So, John, did you understand what this was all about?
Duncombe: Not a word. Meself, I leave the money stuff to the wife, and am the better for it. But our Mr. Pepys is always agitated about it, isn't he. Hey, Admiral, since he's your neighor - why does he do like that, y'know, the midnight oil and all?
Penn: Who knows. Do normal people work at midnight? Best case, the fellow's a worrier. He's making himself sick with all that crazy scratching in books. Worst case, it's to sidetrack us away from the real stuff. Like, you know [in a low tone] he's a p-a-p-i-s-t.
Sam is, of course, not the only honest and conscientious professional around, but in 1668 almost everyone cuts corners, and those who don't could pass for maniacs, or be suspect of just hiding it really well. Another vignette from the State Papers (No. 3, same page), from a Wm. Bodham of Woolwich, whose job is to inspect deliveries of hamp (from Flanders, of all places, in an "age of sail" that could be properly called The Age of Rope): "We must open every bundle of it, knowing what cheats are usually packed up in the midst of it. This is an impartial report, although we have been terrified by menaces, and tempted by allurements, to take it in, right or wrong."
And today Sam will likely have received a letter from Mr Sherburne of the Ordnance Office (we assume that interoffice stuff within London was couriered on the day). It reports on storing ordnance at Chatham Dock and isn't particularly noteworthy except where the writer asks for the goods to be put under guard, as (you know what these docks are like), they are...
"liable to be damnified by embezzlements".
Huzzah for 17th century convoluted business lingo! Now, our highly literate Sam doesn't write like that, so we wonder if he also smiled at the turn of phrase. But we should challenge ourselves to use, at least once a year, "damnified by embezzlements" in conversation. Our excuse in this case would be State Paper No. 211, at https://play.google.com/books/rea….
Confirming some of this Society's discussion of 2006 re. Master Shish, https://www.namespedia.com/detail…, one of the multitude of genealogical websites now at our disposal, finds a prevalence of Shishes in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. None survives in England, so it seems not an indigenous name. Emigration to Russia seems unlikely (though Peter the Great did go shopping for European tradesmen a century after Sam), so Eastern Europe may be where their roots are. One can imagine the family having started in shipbuilding as the Hanseatic League was in bloom, and made their way to England as one declined and the other's naval power grew.
So here we are on the De la Roche business: it gets its 7 lines of fame in the Diary. Tracking all these shenanigans was worth it after all. Though Sam doesn't seem too preoccupied with "everybody's" opinion that war will follow, and quickly moves on to tickets and bookbinding.
The main piece of news is that Charles wrote to Louis to complain. So far the King's only personal appearance in this affair had been his instructions of February 23 to York (De la Roche's raid to retrieve the St. Mary's sails and ammunitions from its fleeing crew had been on the 14th). If he sent his démarche on the same day, it should have reached Versailles a few days ago, assuming the weather allowed the mails to cross the Channel. We would love to see that letter, if it did exist.
Note that Allin's meeting with De la Roche, which we surmised on Thursday to have been quite icy, will come across in the Gazette's version for the publick (in No. 239, published on or about March 2) as much more of an Entente Cordiale between gentlemen: on the 27th, "after the usual salutation and Ceremonies upon such occasions", Allin "prevailed with [De la Roche] to dismiss an Ostender [the captured St. Mary] and to discharge above an hundred English which he had aboard him". De la Roche nods his head, sees the wisdom of backing down, shakes hands with Sir Thomas, has another one for the road. Not something to make "everybody" cry war about.
It seems however that a bit more happened in the Spithead today, February 29, as a violent storm (reported in which various dispatches) kept ships and likely the French fleet from getting away. Tomorrow (March 1), Allin (our spy on the Monmouth tells us) will write to Williamson that he "has taken the Mary of Ostend and 4 other Ostenders from Monsieur De la Roche" -- so now there's five Ostenders, not just the one -- and "will send all the English they had aboard on shore at Portsmouth" -- seemingly "all" of up to 300 who had been reported, not just the 103 he had persuaded to leave (State Paper No. 175, https://play.google.com/books/rea…)
And now De la Roche would end up with zero prize, and zero mercenary. Poor De la Roche! More tea? Or would you have war? Tea? War? We wager that De la Roche will, instead, wisely leave English waters, indeed losing his English crew along the way, and sail on to his other current assignment in the Straits. But remember, in State Paper No. 126 which San Diego Sarah copied yesterday, it was said the "ominous drumming" had sounded out of the "strange well at Oundle", a habitual portent of great disaster and sorrow!
And today Sam also got a note from Coventry (State Paper No. 108), adding to the heap that "the Committee on miscarriages intend to send for the commissioners and victualler on Monday, to inquire into the want of victuals complained of by Prince Rupert. Pray prepare for both". Oh joy, now they'll get into all the rotten biscuits and undrinkable beer.
A couple of other documents in today's mailbag further document the chaos. A Mr. Fownes (in No. 134) asks the Commissioners for an additional clerk to manage the books, and for leave to pay him more than "labourer's pay", so he's able to do more than file receipts. Sam's colleague Edw. Gregory, Clerk of the Cheque, notes (in No. 135) that the lax security on ships is an invitation to thievery; it is so rife that "a fellow from the Defiance", found "leaving the yard with a new coil of rope in a biscuit bag", pleaded, as his defence, that he had "helped to the discovery of more ropes and other goods purloined".
A quick word search in the State Papers, in the html version (at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) which allows such sport, reveals that the evil of Nonconformity, or at least the perception of it by the writers whose letters are at our disposall, indeed seems to be encreasing lately in a most concerning manner. Counting occurrences of words starting in "fanat-" (e.g. fanatique, fanatick) or in "noncon-", we find on a monthly basis from July 1667 through Feb. 1668: 2 - 3 - 4 - 3 - 1 - 1 - 2 (this in January) - 6 (this in February, and all in separate documents). It's not extremely robust statistics but it does suggest a recent uptick in fanaticks.
Two of the ticks are in an undated and unsigned letter, filed (at https://play.google.com/books/rea…) under "Feb[ruary]?" and tentatively attributed to "Viscount Conway". The author supplies a field guide to the Court to his in-law, ahead of his coming there. He doesn't much like the scene, and asserts that "the Duke of Buckingham (...) heads the fanatics"; he also makes "the king compl[y] with him out of fear", and "thinks to arrive to be another Oliver, and the fanatics expect a day of redemption under him".
The editors of the State Papers think it "a curious letter". Is it useful decoding of what the word "fanatique" may have also (or really) meant in political terms? The viscount is on the Irish Privy Council, a F.R.S. and rather on the ascent (see his rise at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edw…) so the letter could reflect the opinion of others at Court, rather than just his personal fancy. "I have here in my hand the proof that..." indeed.
Meanwhile, while Sam was drifting on the wind music's wings, it's been a busy day in the Spithead, the channel between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, where the instrument of choice was fifes, if not percussions. Two (and possibly more) dispatches, written in near-real time and sent at a gallop from Portsmouth to Joseph Williamson (and preserved at https://play.google.com/books/rea…) relate that Sir Thomas Allin, last heard a few days ago exchanging gunfire with Captain De la Roche, has made contact "and commanded him aboard, where he now remains; he is stayed for having Capt. Skelton and 200 or 300 English sailors aboard him". We know not this Capt. Skelton (who may in fact be an Army lieutenant-colonel). The meeting on Allin's flagship (presumably the Monmouth, whence he's been writing lately) is said to have been cordial and gentlemanly (full of "great civility and favor" is how later dispatches will put it) and Sir Thomas himself wasn't so busy that he didn't also take time to send to London (though perhaps earlier in the day) an order for "small nails" and other supplies.
However we doubt if M. De la Roche much enjoyed being "commanded aboard". Once the tea and sconces had run out he returned to his ship full of English mercenaries, only, to his dismay no doubt, to be forced back to the coast within 2 hours by contrary winds ("palsambleu" is the least he would have said), and there to be relieved by Allin (no doubt giving thanks for the weather) of 103 of his Englishmen, and of the St. Mary, the Ostend privateer he had lately captured. The latter is described as "small", and was known to be full of holes, but De la Roche had worked hard to get it and so far it's been his only trophy in the Ostend compartment of his mission, so he must be miffed. That not all Englishmen came out suggests that their extraction was not all "great civility and favor". It's a good thing M. De la Roche did not have a radio at his disposal to tell Versailles what a bad day he's had, but a miffed French admiral (more or less his rank) is still a dangerous thing, given how delicately balanced the situation is in the Channel. We also expect this to cause quite a hoo-hah when the news reach London in the next couple days.
Feb. 25, Portsmouth. (Name missing) to Williamson. (...) Mons. De La Roche with his consort has gone for the coast of France, but met with Sir Thos. Allin's squadron of 5 frigates. Some guns fired, and they have lain this hour muzzled together [State Papers No. 77, https://play.google.com/books/rea…]
Uh-oh.
Wait a minute. Weren't Allen's instructions, dated just two days ago, to do nothing if De La Roche "is gone eastward, or to the coast of France"?
Our spy at the Savoy reports that Williamson will put this dispatch almost verbatim in the next Gazette (No. 238, of 24 Feb.), only adding that the engagement took place "off the Horse". We're unsure where that is, if it's a place. However we're also told, quite interestingly, that three items down the page will appear one official notice, rather unusual and in the extra-large typeface reserved for what Whitehall wants you not to miss, on how a book "lately published" contains "indecent expressions, and reflections upon the Most Christian King", Louis the Great; and on how "it must be acknowledged that the said Expressions and Reflections unhappily escaped the view of the Peruser, and that nothing of that Nature ought to be justified".
We are walking on eggs there, aren't we. We asked our bookseller, but he said someone just bought his entire stock of anti-French books. He offered us L'Escholle des Filles instead, but that's just not the same.
"the practice heretofore, for all foreign nations, at enmity one with another, to forbear any acts of hostility to one another, in the presence of any of the King of England’s ships"
Very cute. Better send a telex to every other ship captain in the world, or the potential for misunderstandings and incidents will be high. In the real world, bilateral peace treaties allow up to a year of additional hostilities until there has been a chance to give everyone the memo. Expect a brisk trade in bootleg English flags, too.
Why, you ask, is Louis (it's "the Most Christian", "the Sun King", "Louis the Great", or maybe "the Dear Leader" to you) poking the sleeping dog? Because it's a sleeping dog, and while he will cajole the docile ones, he'll render those who give him trouble into sausage meat. Louis has just had a very hot war against England in the Americas, where he trashed Nevis and St. Christopher, and just this week he was handed back Cayenne and L'Acadie. He is winning (for now, OK) in Flanders, in the France Comté, in Luxembourg, is poking at Poland, commands one of Europe's largest armies if not the largest, and -- never, ever forget this -- anything Louis does is God's will. God right now wants to secure French borders and to expand them to wherever a claim can be discerned, and Louis has never felt so good about himself.
Louis' views of England in his mémoires for 1667-68 (searchable, in French only we're afraid, at https://books.google.fr/books?id=…) range from neutral to disparaging. He wants to keep Charles neutral mainly to remain free on other fronts but considers him feeble, corrupt and easily bullied. See, at page 192, how he will, years later, boast of having brilliantly shoehorned Charles into signing the Treaty of Breda, without even using the bribe set aside for this, "for the English, not daring to put their fleet to sea out of fear that I would join to the Dutch my own, that I kept all ready, were so maltreated in their own ports that they were forced to consent shamefully to the conditions they had previously refused". And at page 275, he gloats of having filched some of Charles' own gendarmes, along with a number of other good soldiers, because they were Catholics, and falling over themselves to rally France's glorious cause.
Just give it, say, ten years, and you'll see. Louis will turn against everybody. God's will is something to have on your side.
February 18: John Bulstrode reporting from the House (to his diary at https://archive.org/details/bulst…) confirms our estimate of 18,000 men in the Navy. So the officers would seem to eat for about as much as the lowly tars.
Maybe he played the trumpet? But no. It would depend on which English remember him. His Wiki lists a Louis, and a quick check on https://www.geneastar.org/ reveals at least one distinct family with a bunch of 16-17C Louis (hardly an original choice at the time). None of them seem to have left much of a trace but they were a military family in Brittany. At least some will be notable counter-revolutionaries, as was their home region generally, so maybe they jumped across the Channel and made a career.
Sam's misgivings concerning the Duke of Lerma seem another little window into his brain, where we suspect we see in action the hypertrophied Survivall Circuit, typical of high-level civil servants and of anyone with recent experience of a dictatorship (we mean Oliver!!) It sends alarms at the slightest sign that anything within a radius of several meters could be construed as partaking in dissent, or impure thoughts, or lèse-majesté. And who knows what innocent-seeming repartee could have sent ripples of knowing chuckles ...
Being stuffed into the mailbag today (at https://play.google.com/books/rea…) a note from Porsmouth that Monsieur De La Roche is still at Cowes (No. 20); an order co-signed by Sam at the Office, hopefully clearing the name of James Whiston the ex-purser of the Loyal Merchant (No. 18); at the preceding page, a somewhat more interesting message (No. 13) to Sam from John Tinker, on his hesitation to let the Revenge sail away "with the 80 or 90 [men] she has, few being seamen". Another problem then: as the professionals won't come back after they didn't get paid, the crews now consist of pressed turnip farmers who can't tie or untie a knot. Tinker implies he wants an order to loose the ship and its flawed crew. Anyone wants to put his elegant signature to that Miscarriage-in-Waiting?
De La Roche's interesting career and Dartagnanesque mustache can be examined in his Wikipedia biography, at https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil…. Charles had, indeed, a debt to him. How secure De La Roche felt in English waters is not known (alas, he left no memoirs), but Louis certainly felt he was the right officer to send there, and orders are orders.
Shockingly it is in French only, however to deal with tongues foreigne we recommend Dr. Google's unguent, Google Translate, which can even be applied automatically (to entire pages in one swoop if used as an Extension) to documents viewed in Chrome (at the Sign of the Chrome, past the ruins of the Fire Fox). It renders everything from Albanian to Zulu (and definitely French or Dutch or Spanish) into increasingly flawless English and is like the dragon's blood to Siegfried, if we may be permitted this slight anachronism.
The somewhat vague gossip that Sam has picked up on this La Roche's reakes is running ahead of at least one dispatch written this day (and recorded as No. 235 in the State Papers, https://play.google.com/books/rea…) forwarding depositions by "several Ostand mariners" whose good ship the St. Mary was seized around a week ago by Capt. De La Roche, despite the crew's attempt to sink her and their escape to Torquay with "their sails, ammunition, &c." They couldn't run too fast with all that stuff, and La Roche caught them up while still at Torquay and seized the not-sinking-fast-enough St. Mary and the "ammunition, &c."
What did we say recently on how those Ostenders would end up bringing their fight with the French into English ports? There we are, while the ink is still fresh on a royal decree to, precisely, keep everyone peaceful and neutral in English ports, and incidentally to ban the likes of La Roche from hiring English mercenaries, as he's just been doing on a scale of several dozen. And De La Roche, last reported 3 days ago to have already moved on to the Isle of Wight, seems to be running around like he owns the place.
So it's a mess and it better be contained, because La Roche isn't just "a French captain", he's the "chef d'escadre des armées navales", one of the highest-ranking and most trusted naval favorites of the Most Christian, who put him there with a substantial fleet (eight big ships) precisely to hunt Ostenders (another report this day, from John Pocock, relates how a St. Malo ship "speaks much of the great prejudice done to that place by the Ostenders"). He also happens to know all the brass in England, where Charles himself pardoned him over tea and sconces (we imagine) after he was captured in that tiff barely 18 months ago. So De La Roche might not be too impressed by a decree to please be nice in our ports, even assuming he knows about it, especially if those Ostend pyrates (with all that ammo they weren't just fishing, right?) are now playing the aggrieved victims. The decree also included orders to the English fleet to secure the waters against foreign privateers, and where was the English fleet in all this?
Incidentally and just for its crustiness we note also this report (at No. 211), of a French vessel raided by Ostenders, who "stripped the French passengers of their clothes, so that they were constrained to borrow some old sea clothes to cover their nakedness". So that's definitely an Ostender tactic, and they don't mean just give me your hat and your boots. In mid-February, brrr. Ironically, at No. 213 Capt. Taylor relates "the pitiful condition of the Spanish soldiers in Ostend, for lack of clothes, &c." Ah, the wily Ostenders.
£5,000 doesn't seem so shabby for an embassy, especially as Sandwich is about done and to be recalled; and he's a star in Spain and the Portugall, probably hardly ever has to pay for a drink.
-- Feb. 18: Warrants to pay to Sir Denis Gauden, victualler of the Navy, 28,000L for providing sea victuals for 5,000 men for 6 months; also 15,734L for sea victuals for 6 months, for fleets to be set out for the winter guard, the Straits and West Indies; also 55,300L for victuals for 9,875 men, to be employed on 50 of his Majesty's ships.
So, that gives us the victualling budget (£99,034, nearly half the £200k labeled "Navy" in the budget that will be agreed a month from now and is listed at https://play.google.com/books/rea…) the daily cost per man (£0.03, or 0.6s., or 7.2 pence, or 1/13th of what Sam splurged on his French-style lunch today, and even 1/26th on two meals/day); and the size of the naval force (about 18,000 men if we count right and if the officers don't eat all the budget).
Well, maybe pouches for the laundry bills and the not-so-interesting papers, and books for the noble stuff, the letters and accounts. Pouches are messy and would be edited out of engravings of Sam's beautiful office, but pouches also for the noble stuff until Sam is quite sure he's rounded up everything for the year and it's ready for binding because... "Look, Bess, my letters of 1667, all nicely bound in leather and gold". "Except this one I found under the bed, dear. Sam? Samuel! Come back! These bindings are expensive!"
So, what Sam and the now exponentially-growing bureaucracies of Europe would have killed for may not be file folders, but three-ring binders. Those seem within the reach of 1668 technology, the age of clocks and blood transfusion, but, again, we'll have to wait 200 years. Osipina, an office equipment company in the Philippines that you might otherwise not expect to come across on pepysdiary.com, tells the story in some detail and notes (at https://www.opisina.com.ph/journa…) that a necessary preliminary was "the invention of the loose-leaf paper in 1854" (Sam after two days of office cleaning might disagree on the date), which it enthusiastically suggests is "perhaps the most popular event in office supplies history".
Sam was kind enough on February 13 (in https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) to answer me on how he feels about this new Committee, formally the Committee of the Council for Navy Affairs, after Carteret was called to it. What a surprise: he doesn't like. It is made up of "men wholly improper", incompetent and unknown even to the Lord Admiral.
A quick trip in the time machine suggests that filing favorites were pouches hung on the walls and papers stuck on nails (in Holland in "Lawyer's Office during Business Hours" by Pieter de Bloot, visible at http://officemuseum.com/photograp…, and in "A Notary in His Office" by Job Adriaensz Berckheyde (1672, what would we do without these Dutch masters), and in France at https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo….
Another technique was, apart from lotsa pouches, great messy heaps such as at https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo…, which also cannot but evoke the Navy Office's front office, with seamen come hat in hand to see about those tickets.
Not a folder, not a box in sight. Histories of folders (which seem quite limited, as if historians didn't see the blockbuster and movie rights waiting to be got from such a theme) seem to agree on the manila folder not showing up before 1898. After the telephone? What took so long? What took so long was mass-produced, cheap but thick paper. Amazingly it seems the price of paper in 1668 was about the same as it would be in 1850 (as per https://www.diva-portal.org/smash…) but for some reason the manila folders had to wait for someone to think of pulping plantain leaves from the Philippines.
Right now the Philippines are Spanish, and the Spanish colonial office sure is good at archiving; there is a parallel universe where Sandwich gets rewarded by Spain with trading rights for early manila folders, and Sam's filing woes disappear. But, in that parallel universe, the cost of shipping paper from the antipodes is also much lower than in this one, where Spain, not realizing the treasure it has on its hand with all these rotting plantain leaves, is foolishly focused on gold and nutmeg instead.
Comments
Second Reading
About Wednesday 4 March 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
And now that the beancounters have their teeth into the Navy, you can expect more why-this and why-that. Today Sir G. Downing (secretary to the Treasury Commision) sent an invitation "to the Navy Commissioners (...) to speak with them on Monday [the 9th] to know why they charged so great a sum in their weekly credits due to the seamen" (State Papers No. 2, https://play.google.com/books/rea…)
Every question, if answered, can lead to another question, especially from titled gentlemen who, themselves, happily live on credit they repay once a year, if ever and, for the luckiest of them, get paid for so-called "charges" by a government that can always press for what it cannot buy ("do you really have to pay the seamen? I mean, they get food and board, no?") But, apart from not enjoying the liberties of that plane of existence, Sam is also a perfectionist, he likes the books to be exactly balanced and people to do their jobs and be paid on time. One wonders if Coventry, Duncombe and the Admiral, repairing to a tavern after today's hearing, couldn't have had this exchange:
Coventry: So, John, did you understand what this was all about?
Duncombe: Not a word. Meself, I leave the money stuff to the wife, and am the better for it. But our Mr. Pepys is always agitated about it, isn't he. Hey, Admiral, since he's your neighor - why does he do like that, y'know, the midnight oil and all?
Penn: Who knows. Do normal people work at midnight? Best case, the fellow's a worrier. He's making himself sick with all that crazy scratching in books. Worst case, it's to sidetrack us away from the real stuff. Like, you know [in a low tone] he's a p-a-p-i-s-t.
Sam is, of course, not the only honest and conscientious professional around, but in 1668 almost everyone cuts corners, and those who don't could pass for maniacs, or be suspect of just hiding it really well. Another vignette from the State Papers (No. 3, same page), from a Wm. Bodham of Woolwich, whose job is to inspect deliveries of hamp (from Flanders, of all places, in an "age of sail" that could be properly called The Age of Rope): "We must open every bundle of it, knowing what cheats are usually packed up in the midst of it. This is an impartial report, although we have been terrified by menaces, and tempted by allurements, to take it in, right or wrong."
About Tuesday 3 March 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
And today Sam will likely have received a letter from Mr Sherburne of the Ordnance Office (we assume that interoffice stuff within London was couriered on the day). It reports on storing ordnance at Chatham Dock and isn't particularly noteworthy except where the writer asks for the goods to be put under guard, as (you know what these docks are like), they are...
"liable to be damnified by embezzlements".
Huzzah for 17th century convoluted business lingo! Now, our highly literate Sam doesn't write like that, so we wonder if he also smiled at the turn of phrase. But we should challenge ourselves to use, at least once a year, "damnified by embezzlements" in conversation. Our excuse in this case would be State Paper No. 211, at https://play.google.com/books/rea….
About Tuesday 3 March 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Confirming some of this Society's discussion of 2006 re. Master Shish, https://www.namespedia.com/detail…, one of the multitude of genealogical websites now at our disposal, finds a prevalence of Shishes in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. None survives in England, so it seems not an indigenous name. Emigration to Russia seems unlikely (though Peter the Great did go shopping for European tradesmen a century after Sam), so Eastern Europe may be where their roots are. One can imagine the family having started in shipbuilding as the Hanseatic League was in bloom, and made their way to England as one declined and the other's naval power grew.
About Saturday 29 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
So here we are on the De la Roche business: it gets its 7 lines of fame in the Diary. Tracking all these shenanigans was worth it after all. Though Sam doesn't seem too preoccupied with "everybody's" opinion that war will follow, and quickly moves on to tickets and bookbinding.
The main piece of news is that Charles wrote to Louis to complain. So far the King's only personal appearance in this affair had been his instructions of February 23 to York (De la Roche's raid to retrieve the St. Mary's sails and ammunitions from its fleeing crew had been on the 14th). If he sent his démarche on the same day, it should have reached Versailles a few days ago, assuming the weather allowed the mails to cross the Channel. We would love to see that letter, if it did exist.
Note that Allin's meeting with De la Roche, which we surmised on Thursday to have been quite icy, will come across in the Gazette's version for the publick (in No. 239, published on or about March 2) as much more of an Entente Cordiale between gentlemen: on the 27th, "after the usual salutation and Ceremonies upon such occasions", Allin "prevailed with [De la Roche] to dismiss an Ostender [the captured St. Mary] and to discharge above an hundred English which he had aboard him". De la Roche nods his head, sees the wisdom of backing down, shakes hands with Sir Thomas, has another one for the road. Not something to make "everybody" cry war about.
It seems however that a bit more happened in the Spithead today, February 29, as a violent storm (reported in which various dispatches) kept ships and likely the French fleet from getting away. Tomorrow (March 1), Allin (our spy on the Monmouth tells us) will write to Williamson that he "has taken the Mary of Ostend and 4 other Ostenders from Monsieur De la Roche" -- so now there's five Ostenders, not just the one -- and "will send all the English they had aboard on shore at Portsmouth" -- seemingly "all" of up to 300 who had been reported, not just the 103 he had persuaded to leave (State Paper No. 175, https://play.google.com/books/rea…)
And now De la Roche would end up with zero prize, and zero mercenary. Poor De la Roche! More tea? Or would you have war? Tea? War? We wager that De la Roche will, instead, wisely leave English waters, indeed losing his English crew along the way, and sail on to his other current assignment in the Straits. But remember, in State Paper No. 126 which San Diego Sarah copied yesterday, it was said the "ominous drumming" had sounded out of the "strange well at Oundle", a habitual portent of great disaster and sorrow!
About Friday 28 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
And today Sam also got a note from Coventry (State Paper No. 108), adding to the heap that "the Committee on miscarriages intend to send for the commissioners and victualler on Monday, to inquire into the want of victuals complained of by Prince Rupert. Pray prepare for both". Oh joy, now they'll get into all the rotten biscuits and undrinkable beer.
A couple of other documents in today's mailbag further document the chaos. A Mr. Fownes (in No. 134) asks the Commissioners for an additional clerk to manage the books, and for leave to pay him more than "labourer's pay", so he's able to do more than file receipts. Sam's colleague Edw. Gregory, Clerk of the Cheque, notes (in No. 135) that the lax security on ships is an invitation to thievery; it is so rife that "a fellow from the Defiance", found "leaving the yard with a new coil of rope in a biscuit bag", pleaded, as his defence, that he had "helped to the discovery of more ropes and other goods purloined".
About Friday 28 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
A quick word search in the State Papers, in the html version (at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) which allows such sport, reveals that the evil of Nonconformity, or at least the perception of it by the writers whose letters are at our disposall, indeed seems to be encreasing lately in a most concerning manner. Counting occurrences of words starting in "fanat-" (e.g. fanatique, fanatick) or in "noncon-", we find on a monthly basis from July 1667 through Feb. 1668: 2 - 3 - 4 - 3 - 1 - 1 - 2 (this in January) - 6 (this in February, and all in separate documents). It's not extremely robust statistics but it does suggest a recent uptick in fanaticks.
Two of the ticks are in an undated and unsigned letter, filed (at https://play.google.com/books/rea…) under "Feb[ruary]?" and tentatively attributed to "Viscount Conway". The author supplies a field guide to the Court to his in-law, ahead of his coming there. He doesn't much like the scene, and asserts that "the Duke of Buckingham (...) heads the fanatics"; he also makes "the king compl[y] with him out of fear", and "thinks to arrive to be another Oliver, and the fanatics expect a day of redemption under him".
The editors of the State Papers think it "a curious letter". Is it useful decoding of what the word "fanatique" may have also (or really) meant in political terms? The viscount is on the Irish Privy Council, a F.R.S. and rather on the ascent (see his rise at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edw…) so the letter could reflect the opinion of others at Court, rather than just his personal fancy. "I have here in my hand the proof that..." indeed.
About Thursday 27 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Meanwhile, while Sam was drifting on the wind music's wings, it's been a busy day in the Spithead, the channel between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, where the instrument of choice was fifes, if not percussions. Two (and possibly more) dispatches, written in near-real time and sent at a gallop from Portsmouth to Joseph Williamson (and preserved at https://play.google.com/books/rea…) relate that Sir Thomas Allin, last heard a few days ago exchanging gunfire with Captain De la Roche, has made contact "and commanded him aboard, where he now remains; he is stayed for having Capt. Skelton and 200 or 300 English sailors aboard him". We know not this Capt. Skelton (who may in fact be an Army lieutenant-colonel). The meeting on Allin's flagship (presumably the Monmouth, whence he's been writing lately) is said to have been cordial and gentlemanly (full of "great civility and favor" is how later dispatches will put it) and Sir Thomas himself wasn't so busy that he didn't also take time to send to London (though perhaps earlier in the day) an order for "small nails" and other supplies.
However we doubt if M. De la Roche much enjoyed being "commanded aboard". Once the tea and sconces had run out he returned to his ship full of English mercenaries, only, to his dismay no doubt, to be forced back to the coast within 2 hours by contrary winds ("palsambleu" is the least he would have said), and there to be relieved by Allin (no doubt giving thanks for the weather) of 103 of his Englishmen, and of the St. Mary, the Ostend privateer he had lately captured. The latter is described as "small", and was known to be full of holes, but De la Roche had worked hard to get it and so far it's been his only trophy in the Ostend compartment of his mission, so he must be miffed. That not all Englishmen came out suggests that their extraction was not all "great civility and favor". It's a good thing M. De la Roche did not have a radio at his disposal to tell Versailles what a bad day he's had, but a miffed French admiral (more or less his rank) is still a dangerous thing, given how delicately balanced the situation is in the Channel. We also expect this to cause quite a hoo-hah when the news reach London in the next couple days.
About Tuesday 25 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Feb. 25, Portsmouth. (Name missing) to Williamson. (...) Mons. De La Roche with his consort has gone for the coast of France, but met with Sir Thos. Allin's squadron of 5 frigates. Some guns fired, and they have lain this hour muzzled together [State Papers No. 77, https://play.google.com/books/rea…]
Uh-oh.
Wait a minute. Weren't Allen's instructions, dated just two days ago, to do nothing if De La Roche "is gone eastward, or to the coast of France"?
Our spy at the Savoy reports that Williamson will put this dispatch almost verbatim in the next Gazette (No. 238, of 24 Feb.), only adding that the engagement took place "off the Horse". We're unsure where that is, if it's a place. However we're also told, quite interestingly, that three items down the page will appear one official notice, rather unusual and in the extra-large typeface reserved for what Whitehall wants you not to miss, on how a book "lately published" contains "indecent expressions, and reflections upon the Most Christian King", Louis the Great; and on how "it must be acknowledged that the said Expressions and Reflections unhappily escaped the view of the Peruser, and that nothing of that Nature ought to be justified".
We are walking on eggs there, aren't we. We asked our bookseller, but he said someone just bought his entire stock of anti-French books. He offered us L'Escholle des Filles instead, but that's just not the same.
About Sunday 23 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
"the practice heretofore, for all foreign nations, at enmity one with another, to forbear any acts of hostility to one another, in the presence of any of the King of England’s ships"
Very cute. Better send a telex to every other ship captain in the world, or the potential for misunderstandings and incidents will be high. In the real world, bilateral peace treaties allow up to a year of additional hostilities until there has been a chance to give everyone the memo. Expect a brisk trade in bootleg English flags, too.
About Sunday 23 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Why, you ask, is Louis (it's "the Most Christian", "the Sun King", "Louis the Great", or maybe "the Dear Leader" to you) poking the sleeping dog? Because it's a sleeping dog, and while he will cajole the docile ones, he'll render those who give him trouble into sausage meat. Louis has just had a very hot war against England in the Americas, where he trashed Nevis and St. Christopher, and just this week he was handed back Cayenne and L'Acadie. He is winning (for now, OK) in Flanders, in the France Comté, in Luxembourg, is poking at Poland, commands one of Europe's largest armies if not the largest, and -- never, ever forget this -- anything Louis does is God's will. God right now wants to secure French borders and to expand them to wherever a claim can be discerned, and Louis has never felt so good about himself.
Louis' views of England in his mémoires for 1667-68 (searchable, in French only we're afraid, at https://books.google.fr/books?id=…) range from neutral to disparaging. He wants to keep Charles neutral mainly to remain free on other fronts but considers him feeble, corrupt and easily bullied. See, at page 192, how he will, years later, boast of having brilliantly shoehorned Charles into signing the Treaty of Breda, without even using the bribe set aside for this, "for the English, not daring to put their fleet to sea out of fear that I would join to the Dutch my own, that I kept all ready, were so maltreated in their own ports that they were forced to consent shamefully to the conditions they had previously refused". And at page 275, he gloats of having filched some of Charles' own gendarmes, along with a number of other good soldiers, because they were Catholics, and falling over themselves to rally France's glorious cause.
Just give it, say, ten years, and you'll see. Louis will turn against everybody. God's will is something to have on your side.
About Tuesday 18 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
February 18: John Bulstrode reporting from the House (to his diary at https://archive.org/details/bulst…) confirms our estimate of 18,000 men in the Navy. So the officers would seem to eat for about as much as the lowly tars.
About Wednesday 19 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Maybe he played the trumpet? But no. It would depend on which English remember him. His Wiki lists a Louis, and a quick check on https://www.geneastar.org/ reveals at least one distinct family with a bunch of 16-17C Louis (hardly an original choice at the time). None of them seem to have left much of a trace but they were a military family in Brittany. At least some will be notable counter-revolutionaries, as was their home region generally, so maybe they jumped across the Channel and made a career.
About Thursday 20 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Sam's misgivings concerning the Duke of Lerma seem another little window into his brain, where we suspect we see in action the hypertrophied Survivall Circuit, typical of high-level civil servants and of anyone with recent experience of a dictatorship (we mean Oliver!!) It sends alarms at the slightest sign that anything within a radius of several meters could be construed as partaking in dissent, or impure thoughts, or lèse-majesté. And who knows what innocent-seeming repartee could have sent ripples of knowing chuckles ...
Being stuffed into the mailbag today (at https://play.google.com/books/rea…) a note from Porsmouth that Monsieur De La Roche is still at Cowes (No. 20); an order co-signed by Sam at the Office, hopefully clearing the name of James Whiston the ex-purser of the Loyal Merchant (No. 18); at the preceding page, a somewhat more interesting message (No. 13) to Sam from John Tinker, on his hesitation to let the Revenge sail away "with the 80 or 90 [men] she has, few being seamen". Another problem then: as the professionals won't come back after they didn't get paid, the crews now consist of pressed turnip farmers who can't tie or untie a knot. Tinker implies he wants an order to loose the ship and its flawed crew. Anyone wants to put his elegant signature to that Miscarriage-in-Waiting?
About Wednesday 19 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
De La Roche's interesting career and Dartagnanesque mustache can be examined in his Wikipedia biography, at https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil…. Charles had, indeed, a debt to him. How secure De La Roche felt in English waters is not known (alas, he left no memoirs), but Louis certainly felt he was the right officer to send there, and orders are orders.
Shockingly it is in French only, however to deal with tongues foreigne we recommend Dr. Google's unguent, Google Translate, which can even be applied automatically (to entire pages in one swoop if used as an Extension) to documents viewed in Chrome (at the Sign of the Chrome, past the ruins of the Fire Fox). It renders everything from Albanian to Zulu (and definitely French or Dutch or Spanish) into increasingly flawless English and is like the dragon's blood to Siegfried, if we may be permitted this slight anachronism.
About Wednesday 19 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
The somewhat vague gossip that Sam has picked up on this La Roche's reakes is running ahead of at least one dispatch written this day (and recorded as No. 235 in the State Papers, https://play.google.com/books/rea…) forwarding depositions by "several Ostand mariners" whose good ship the St. Mary was seized around a week ago by Capt. De La Roche, despite the crew's attempt to sink her and their escape to Torquay with "their sails, ammunition, &c." They couldn't run too fast with all that stuff, and La Roche caught them up while still at Torquay and seized the not-sinking-fast-enough St. Mary and the "ammunition, &c."
What did we say recently on how those Ostenders would end up bringing their fight with the French into English ports? There we are, while the ink is still fresh on a royal decree to, precisely, keep everyone peaceful and neutral in English ports, and incidentally to ban the likes of La Roche from hiring English mercenaries, as he's just been doing on a scale of several dozen. And De La Roche, last reported 3 days ago to have already moved on to the Isle of Wight, seems to be running around like he owns the place.
So it's a mess and it better be contained, because La Roche isn't just "a French captain", he's the "chef d'escadre des armées navales", one of the highest-ranking and most trusted naval favorites of the Most Christian, who put him there with a substantial fleet (eight big ships) precisely to hunt Ostenders (another report this day, from John Pocock, relates how a St. Malo ship "speaks much of the great prejudice done to that place by the Ostenders"). He also happens to know all the brass in England, where Charles himself pardoned him over tea and sconces (we imagine) after he was captured in that tiff barely 18 months ago. So De La Roche might not be too impressed by a decree to please be nice in our ports, even assuming he knows about it, especially if those Ostend pyrates (with all that ammo they weren't just fishing, right?) are now playing the aggrieved victims. The decree also included orders to the English fleet to secure the waters against foreign privateers, and where was the English fleet in all this?
About Tuesday 18 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Incidentally and just for its crustiness we note also this report (at No. 211), of a French vessel raided by Ostenders, who "stripped the French passengers of their clothes, so that they were constrained to borrow some old sea clothes to cover their nakedness". So that's definitely an Ostender tactic, and they don't mean just give me your hat and your boots. In mid-February, brrr. Ironically, at No. 213 Capt. Taylor relates "the pitiful condition of the Spanish soldiers in Ostend, for lack of clothes, &c." Ah, the wily Ostenders.
About Tuesday 18 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
£5,000 doesn't seem so shabby for an embassy, especially as Sandwich is about done and to be recalled; and he's a star in Spain and the Portugall, probably hardly ever has to pay for a drink.
The State Papers today (https://play.google.com/books/rea…) also have a good one at No. 191:
-- Feb. 18: Warrants to pay to Sir Denis Gauden, victualler of the Navy, 28,000L for providing sea victuals for 5,000 men for 6 months; also 15,734L for sea victuals for 6 months, for fleets to be set out for the winter guard, the Straits and West Indies; also 55,300L for victuals for 9,875 men, to be employed on 50 of his Majesty's ships.
So, that gives us the victualling budget (£99,034, nearly half the £200k labeled "Navy" in the budget that will be agreed a month from now and is listed at https://play.google.com/books/rea…) the daily cost per man (£0.03, or 0.6s., or 7.2 pence, or 1/13th of what Sam splurged on his French-style lunch today, and even 1/26th on two meals/day); and the size of the naval force (about 18,000 men if we count right and if the officers don't eat all the budget).
About Saturday 15 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Well, maybe pouches for the laundry bills and the not-so-interesting papers, and books for the noble stuff, the letters and accounts. Pouches are messy and would be edited out of engravings of Sam's beautiful office, but pouches also for the noble stuff until Sam is quite sure he's rounded up everything for the year and it's ready for binding because... "Look, Bess, my letters of 1667, all nicely bound in leather and gold". "Except this one I found under the bed, dear. Sam? Samuel! Come back! These bindings are expensive!"
So, what Sam and the now exponentially-growing bureaucracies of Europe would have killed for may not be file folders, but three-ring binders. Those seem within the reach of 1668 technology, the age of clocks and blood transfusion, but, again, we'll have to wait 200 years. Osipina, an office equipment company in the Philippines that you might otherwise not expect to come across on pepysdiary.com, tells the story in some detail and notes (at https://www.opisina.com.ph/journa…) that a necessary preliminary was "the invention of the loose-leaf paper in 1854" (Sam after two days of office cleaning might disagree on the date), which it enthusiastically suggests is "perhaps the most popular event in office supplies history".
About Wednesday 5 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Sam was kind enough on February 13 (in https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) to answer me on how he feels about this new Committee, formally the Committee of the Council for Navy Affairs, after Carteret was called to it. What a surprise: he doesn't like. It is made up of "men wholly improper", incompetent and unknown even to the Lord Admiral.
About Saturday 15 February 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
A quick trip in the time machine suggests that filing favorites were pouches hung on the walls and papers stuck on nails (in Holland in "Lawyer's Office during Business Hours" by Pieter de Bloot, visible at http://officemuseum.com/photograp…, and in "A Notary in His Office" by Job Adriaensz Berckheyde (1672, what would we do without these Dutch masters), and in France at https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo….
Another technique was, apart from lotsa pouches, great messy heaps such as at https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo…, which also cannot but evoke the Navy Office's front office, with seamen come hat in hand to see about those tickets.
Not a folder, not a box in sight. Histories of folders (which seem quite limited, as if historians didn't see the blockbuster and movie rights waiting to be got from such a theme) seem to agree on the manila folder not showing up before 1898. After the telephone? What took so long? What took so long was mass-produced, cheap but thick paper. Amazingly it seems the price of paper in 1668 was about the same as it would be in 1850 (as per https://www.diva-portal.org/smash…) but for some reason the manila folders had to wait for someone to think of pulping plantain leaves from the Philippines.
Right now the Philippines are Spanish, and the Spanish colonial office sure is good at archiving; there is a parallel universe where Sandwich gets rewarded by Spain with trading rights for early manila folders, and Sam's filing woes disappear. But, in that parallel universe, the cost of shipping paper from the antipodes is also much lower than in this one, where Spain, not realizing the treasure it has on its hand with all these rotting plantain leaves, is foolishly focused on gold and nutmeg instead.