1668. England is at peace. Peace, and its horrors: No more money for the fleet, the troops all demobbed and scattering. The Clerk of the Acts often despairs of getting enough to pay suppliers and keep the King's great Navy afloat.
Oh boo-hoo-hoo? Maybe there is hope - from who else than Henry Jermyn, earl of St. Albans, currently on one of his many missions to Paris (he's travelling light - we saw a pass into France for his suite of just 35 horses and 2 mules on January 14, at https://play.google.com/books/rea…) This one is certainly timely, what with the easily mis-interpreted deal with the Dutch, but on this day St. Albans is with another outsize character, the Venetian ambassador to France, Marc Antonio Giustinian, a.k.a. "Golden Guts" (according to his Wikipedia notice - don't ask), a future doge and a terrific cable writer. Venice is, at this time, still in a bloody fight with the Turk, and has called Christiandom for help. Golden Guts memorializes the meeting for the doge and senate, and you can almost see the glasses of prosecco twinkle as St. Albans does a bit of trade diplomacy:
-- "The earl of St. Albans, who is going to London next week, called on me at this house. (...) He promised to do his best for the levy, but warned me of the difficulties in the way, owing to the reduction of the population by reason of the plague and the war which afflicted that country only a few months ago. In a subdued tone he spoke of their trade in the Levant and that he did not know how the Turks would take it. It seemed to me, however, that this was not the obstacle which he had in mind, but that he introduced the point in order to bring your Excellencies to something more profitable for the royal House of England. Thus he went further and said that if the republic should happen to want to hire ships, it would be easy to fill these with men and cause them to proceed to the Levant, while giving out that the Venetians had purchased them in England. In this way the traders would be protected from suffering harm while the republic would get what it wanted. He stopped at this point and from what I understand Prince Rupert has a squadron of thirteen ships which he would like to turn to advantage either by selling or by hiring. I told the earl that I had no commissions about ships but that to raise the question in London could not fail to do good. Paris, the 24th January, 1667 [old style; 1668]"
Mr. Pepys, new plan: We'll sell or lease out the Navy. Please draft a price list. (What's this about Rupert having a squadron for sale?)
The dispatch is in the Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, vol. 35, No. 272 (https://www.british-history.ac.uk…)
On this day another senior bureaucrat, well known to Sam, writes a chilling official letter.
Sir Ellis Leighton last came across the radar in March. Sam met him when he worked in the prize office and thinks him a wit (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) and "one of the best companions at a meale in the world" (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) He is now the Secretary of the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa, and had to answer a petition which representatives from Barbadoes had sent him in September, on how they cannot afford to buy slaves at the company's price, and should be allowed to source them directly from Guiny. In November Sam had already picked up a company response (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) but, whether this still came short or another group had petitioned, Sir Ellis is now picking up his quill again.
He writes, of the Barbadoes planters, that "hitherto [it] has been their practice" to "never pay for the negroes they have". And notes the pernicious effects that making slaves too cheap is having on the company: "And as it was testified they had so great a glut of negroes that they would hardly give them their victuals for their labour, and multitudes died upon the Company's hands". Which was a great bother to manage. The letter is in the State Papers' colonial series (America and West Indies), vol. XXII, No. 1680 [https://www.british-history.ac.uk…]
Our Sam, this generally gentle soul, was supposedly an investor in the CRATA, "from 1663" according to the notice this earns him in a National Portrait Gallery catalog of accomplices to the slave trade (https://www.npg.org.uk/learning/d…) One wonders at the evidence, and that statement, and others like it, are not backed by much sourcing or detail. Anyway, after November 1667 the diary ceases to mention Sir Ellis, the witty conversationalist whose company Sam had enjoyed so much; nor can we find any letter to a Mr. Leighton or (as Sam spelled it) Layton, investment or not. Maybe it's just that they now move in different circles. Perhaps reading the company's brief to parliament on how to fairly price negroes had brought into focus what may have been a bit remote and abstract, and caused a malaise, different-values-at-the-time or not. Or perhaps a coffee-house chat, unreported in the Journall. "Ah, Pepys, you think you have problems at the Navy Office. Let me tell you, I would trade them for the headaches this current glut of negroes is causing me".
Scube: Thank you. In large part. The State Papers also include more stately collections on foreign relations, but the Domestic Series is where the amazingly thorough 19th century archivists who summarized these tens of thousands of obscure manuscripts, put the Naval Office documents. They also contain a wealth of petitions about unpaid bills and unjust arrests, country-life gazette items and miscellaneous red tape and inter-office correspondence that give a street-level view on the little people (usually, on their gripes and problems) which complement the Journal quite nicely. Many bear Sam's fingerprints but he must have dismissed that stuff as too boring for the Journal, and anyway who wants to go back all over the workday when updating their diary?
The Google scans I reference, as well as a University of London version (available from https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) which is just as good but (urgh) all in a modern UTF font, both have search indexes, and putting the purser's, the captain's or their ship's name in there leads to a few mentions here and there. The actual records tend to be in the National Archives at Kew but, alas, have not been digitized. Just Googling the ships' names brings up minutely detailed descriptions in a fantastic database of age-of-sail warships, threedecks.org, and further mentions of The Loyal Merchant in documents from well into the next century, and in Company archives. Whether Capt. White was really bound to a chair is neither documented, nor contradicted by the historical record.
On this day, perhaps while Sam was out of the office, someone else wrote a report on a sordid affair in which the purser of the Loyal Merchant, lately one of the Navy's major hired ships, accuses its captain Isaac White of the ageless trick of over-reporting the crew's size, and of having had him thrown into jail when he wouldn't play along. Sam would know the case well, as the report includes his notes from the captain's interrogation. Interestingly, the notes are recorded as "in Pepys' shorthand" [State Papers No. 20-II, https://shorturl.at/ayAB6 page 181], confirming that he was there in the action, and that his duties extend to enforcement and fraud investigations. We can imagine him, scratching away while the captain, bound to a chair and with a large lantern in his face, deals with one of the more muscular clerks.
But why him? Sam's no mere note-taker. Financial crime, financial cop. And then, he's good with captains. And then... much, much to Sam's puzzlement, the office asks him, in such cases, to sing "Beauty Retire" to the subject, again and again. It's a hard nut indeed that doesn't crack after a couple of hours of that, or a reading of Boyle's "Hydrostatics".
The case apparently goes nowhere. In a month [State Papers, page 241], the purser gets a honorable discharge as Sam writes again to get him paid back the security which kept him in his job (relations can't have improved with the captain after today). Captain White soon resurfaces, still a captain and on another ship - though a smaller one, the Wren, so perhaps he didn't really shine in Sam's transcript. The Loyal Merchant goes on to a decades-long career, at one point passing to the East India Company.
Once again Mr. Pepys was at absolutely the right dinner party, to hear of a deal with the Dutch that (we all use the Gregorian calendar, right?) will not even be signed before the 23rd. This would seem to be a leak, maybe authorized. Or was there some public announcement out of the Hague? He seems fainly surprised. Clearly the triple alliance is above his pay grade, but he could have been told in advance at the Office to pump up the victualling a bit.
In any case the news must be getting around, as today Mr. Thomas Holden ("a merchant", as per https://www.britishmuseum.org/col…) writes "to Hickes" that "It is reported that the King intends to put out 110 men-of-war this spring, and the Dutch 100 more, against the French" (State Papers, https://shorturl.at/ayAB6, p. 176). "Against" as in "to defend against", in the very unfortunate event we have to, and we're pretty sure Charles will do no such thing, but still; that would a be lot of ships to mobilize. It may call for more biscuits.
As for the horses, well, why not being nice to Louis, someone we can't really fight and might just be signing another treaty with in the not too distant future. And the French also just seem to love English horses. Since early November, it's a total of 292 horses that various dispatches reported crossing the channel, gifts (or trade) to various French grandees, including the 17 nice ones for the Most Christian, and a whole herd of 140 conveyed by the highly francophile Sir George Hamilton just yesterday (State Papers, p. 178, No. 195). That's great, because what other luxury goods does England have on offer, exactly?
Susan, we concede that your interpretation is so much more consistent with the Weymouth dispatch as to be, in fact, correct. Our minde had just recoiled at the possibility of so brazen a deed as seizing a ship in dock, but we also now do find that Mr. Muddiman was suffered to report the embarrassing incident in his Gazette (No. 216 of Jan. 13-16, page 2, col. 2), and clarifies that (a) the ship was part of a caravan that had sought shelter from a storm, (b) it was indeed "seised on by an Ostender and carryed off", and (c) the captain was not "let go" (hey, captains are good to ransom), but happened to be on shore; only the English customs-men did the Ostender have "the kindness" (how touching), and the great wisdom, to leave alone.
"Ostender" in 1668 is a loaded term. Ostend is indeed part of the United Provinces, but must have been a thorn in their side as the main base for the infamous Dunkirkers, privateers with a decades-long record of working for Spain. Their concise history at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dun… is a bit blank on the 1660s, but clearly they're still available and Spain is still technically at war with Portugal until February, so no problem there.
One could still, if of a sinful disposition, build an alternative history in which the Portuguese captain had only pretended to be driven to the coast, was really on a mission, &c. A mission for who? The court in Lisbon did have bigger fish to fry than the fate of Bombay, had traded it off for help in Europe against Spain. But that didn't mean a lack of interest in India, where Portugal had plenty of other bases and controlled land well beyond Bombay (see the map at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Por…) Brazil is fine, but why should it be enough, and aren't we all agreed that the real riches are in the Orient?
On the ground, anyway, the Portuguese viceroy and governor have been doing all they could to stop, delay or contain the transfers to England. As of 1668 they have lost bits and pieces and Bombay has a hands-on governor, a Capt. Gary, who is doing a bit more than his predecessors to fortify the island - but it's nothing like what the Company, already a formidable entity, could (and will) deploy. If Sam had worked for the EIC (and who knows if he didn't get the pitch?) he likely wouldn't have complained as much of not getting resources (why, Mr. Pepys, in the private sector of course you would have that coach already!) But, anyway, life went on. Many of the Portuguese just got rebadged as Company men. Portugal retreated to Goa and will cling to it until 1974.
At this time the shortened link works on all our devices, of both the Windows and the Android persuasions. It does lead us to a large blackish (actually dark green) rectangle but, on close inspection, this proves to be the embossed cover of the book, and at the bottom of the page we find a sliding cursor to navigate inside the volume. The full link, https://play.google.com/books/rea…, is a mouthful and its termination is specific to each page, but if it is more serviceable we shall now favour it.
Not a Pepys matter really, but we also resist not quoting this message sent yesterday from Weymouth: "The Portugal ship in Portland road has been seized and carried to Ostend, notwithstanding being in the King's chamber, within shot of the castle. Only the captain, a boy and some customs' officers on board were let come on shore". [shorturl.at/ayAB6, page 165].
The "Portugal ship". From a country in revolutionary turmoil, former home to a somewhat miffed queen, and that's about to lose its Indian dominions to England. It's not trusted. And it's "within shot of the castle"? Why, if the King should happen to be in Weymouth, on a discreet outing with some mistress... An accidental broadside from the ships' guns... Kaboom. Suinto muito. Who else but the captain and that Persian spy knew of Charles' plans for Bombay anyway? And India stays Portuguese.
"At the office all the morning", and then some book-buying and theater. Ah well.
The morning mail has come. At least no summons from the Duke today, yesterday's meeting was frustration enough. But what's this?
Sir William Batten assembles the Officers of the Navy, and their most trusted clerks, in a secure part of the Office. He has a paper in hand.
"Gentlemen, an announcement". Theatrical pause. Wink. "We got 'em!"
Batten waits until the applause and the catcalls subside; cries of "huzzah! Begorra! Gramercy!" And, from the Clerk of the Acts, a slightly crestfallen "Adod!" Then Batten reads the dispatch now come from Portsmouth:
-- "Jan. 13, Portsmouth Ropeyard. Gregory Peachy to the Navy Commissioners. Two rope-makers were taken last Saturday with 14 lb. weight of cable. Captain Tinker and the mayor have secured the pieces, and taken security for the men's appearance until your Honours' pleasure is known" [shorturl.at/ayAB6, page 166].
"Hang' em with their own rope", is one predictable suggestion. Batten continues, "I'd like to thank my lord the mayor of Portsmouth, the Portsmouth watch and justice of the peace, and the many others who helped in this two-month manhunt and who, for the King's security, have to carry on anonymously with their duty... And now I am going to Whitehall to give His Royal Highness the good news. You know his Grace personally tracks the pilfering that's going on" - this with a quick glance at Sam.
Saturday? Why, on Lord's day Peachy didn't know the fiends had been caught, and was still writing of failure and of how hard it was? And of course, they'd send him the bad news, but the good ones go to "the Commissioners", eh?
Will Hewer quietly asks Sam, "you're not going along to the Duke, boss?"
"Well, no. It's not victualling or contracting, see... And I have quite a busy day already".
Well, at least the nightmare is over. Still, they recovered only 14 lbs? Nearly the whole haul has already disappeared into the black market for ropes and yarn.
"Hey boss, how do we know it's them?"
"Well, Peachy had said he 'shall know the yarn again if he can see it'. It's at page 104 in the State Papers". Still... there will be others. Industrial security is a never-ending job.
Thieves and embezzlers everywhere, as if things weren't in enough chaos. If only the Navy was as tidy as Sam's books, office and closet!
Perhaps one day the Society will come up with a solution. Why, if a man's blood can be changed, why not replace other corrupted parts with clockwork? An entire Navy of honest, predictable mechanicall seamen... "Mr. Boyle to carry the experiment". Ha ha.
At least the mail from Portsmouth did not reach the office in time for Tinker's report, of the investigation going nowhere, to be added to the sad menu of today's meeting with the Duke:
-- "Jan. [13]. M. Wren to the Navy Commissioners. The Duke expects them this afternoon. Asks them to inquire into the complaint of embezzlements in the Orange", with reports of "stores embezzled by" the carpenter and the gunner (https://shorturl.at/ayAB6, page 166).
Well, no, the mayor's giant lantern is not recorded at page 153 of the Calendar of State Papers. Disregard that typo. The lantern idea had merit, though, and will be passed to the Society for evaluation.
And now this. On that terrible night (page 92) in November, on the very day that Navy Commissioner Col. Middleton was inspecting, individuals that poor Peachy calls "those desperate instruments" (of Hell, maybe) stole 3 hundredweights of the King's tar yarn. 180 kg! It means, a gang, a horsecart, long and deceitful planning! And, on a recent quote of 50s. per cwt (page 140), a loss of, what, 7 and a half pounds!
An inside job is suspected (page 104). A watch was set, workers were warned they'd have to replace anything found missing, the mayor issued a search warrant (page 104), all yarn is now secured at night in the tar-house (pages 153, 156). The mayor also suggested contriving a giant lantern to project onto the clouds a call for help to "Pepysman", as he curiously put it, but this was found to exceed the techniques presently at our disposall. (page 153). All though the blessed 12 days of Christmas, ropemakers were searched from Portsmouth to Gosport (page 156).
But, despite the offer of "a considerable reward" (page 156), all in vain! A 3-page memo to report they "failed" (page 164). And what's this, Mr. Peachy's questioning of the ropemakers was "not much to the purpose"? What, did they fall to drinking and yard-talk? Does Sam have to do everything himself, then? Should he go to Portsmouth?
"Some business" between dinner and Unthanke's. Indeed. And it couldn't make this humdrum Monday much better.
Alone in his beloved closet, chief inspector Pepys fingers the dispatch, written yesterday, that just came in from Portsmouth:
-- "Jan. 12, Portsmouth. John Tinker to Sam. Pepys. I find Mr. Peachy has been very diligent in the search after the yarn; has been examining witnesses, but not much to the purpose". With a 3-page attachment, "Information of John Leverett and 4 others, before Hugh Salesbury, Mayor of Portsmouth, as to the breaking open of the rope-house at Portsmouth, on 16 Nov. last, and stealing 3 cwt. of tar yarn. - 9 Jan. 1668" [Calendar of State Papers, https://shorturl.at/ayAB6, page 164; further page references to the same source].
The rope-yard break-in. Nasty case, that, from a place where news are usually bad. Sam sighs at the depths of human depravity in which his job forces him to wade (it's to steel himself and for necessary professional training, that he browses the back shelves at Martin's, understand). Too sensitive even for the Journall, it is.
The Portsmouth rope-yard is critical to the Navy, which relies on its product to keep its sails from flying away in the breeze. Of late, like other yards full of unpaid workers, that strategic facility been a cauldron near to boiling over. "The people [are] so needy and wicked", and "the house is so weak", that "disorder" and theft are constantly to be feared. The workers had to be "several times pricked and suspended" for skimping on quality, "to make haste to finish their day's work", delivering inferior product of the prescribed diameter but with less than the 14 threads per strand which they should well know are necessary to keep the ropes from breaking (pages 95-96). Imagine if this should happen in some frantic engagement, in full view of the Dutch - who would Parliament call to account, then, hmm?
Alternatively our turbaned visitor could possibly have been the infamous Mahomed Bei himself, the Valachian crook (and, horror, apostate) that Evelyn will denounce next year, for passing himself for a top Ottoman commander turned defender of Christians. Evelyn's bio of the man is hilarious, for the utter cheek it describes, even for a time when records took a while to check. As of early 1668, the man could still be in Paris, snookering king Louis and the entire French court, or already in London, where, by September, he will be parading in Oriental dress, showing off the gold chain the French queen gave him. In February 1669 Evelyn will burn him for good in England, presenting his "Three Late Famous Impostors" to Charles himself. If it was indeed Pietro Cisij who blew the whistle (Evelyn will have a good meeting with him in September, his diary says), it begs the question why; revulsion at the apostasy? Petty rivalry among expats? Or, if Cisij was at all a Persian envoy, a chance to embarrass those who had been suckered into bogus deals with the Porte? Who knows, but apparently "Mahomed" carried on, and by 1670 he had an impressive portrait (visible at https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/…) to impress the State Council of Portugal.
Pity that Sam, a curious mind whose next move is to buy a book on China, didn't find a way, or the time or interest, to approach this Persian and seems to have only gaped at his turban. The meeting, however, wasn't all about hand-kissing because Charles and the Persian envoy had quite a lot to discuss in early 1668.
It's hard to see what use either nation could really be in the conflict between the Turk and Venice. The latter have called Christendom to help, but it's far, the forces already involved are massive, the trench warfare has been pretty nasty, and - speaking of Sam - the Turk could retaliate at Tangiers if England got involved.
Soon, however, Charles will declare full and formal control of Bombay, which had been in Catherine's dowry but awaited the Portuguese's current moment of weakness to properly change hands. He will entrust it to the East India Company, who will (a) give him a loan of £50,000 for it, and (b) start an empire of some interest to the Navy. That will be on March 27. On April 1, Charles will then write to the King of Persia, England's new neighbor. Today's meeting may have been to find out how the KoP might react and what kind of chocolates to send with the formal letter. That letter would be interesting to see, unfortunately it's not online (anyone with access to the National Archive can look up record E/3/87 f 83 of the British Library's Asian and African Archive). Sam's brush with the turban in the Vane Room was a glimpse of a pretty big chunk of history being made.
Sam is also about to receive a report, penned this day at Portsmouth by "St. John Steventon", a detailed report on "the muster of the Cambridge", a timber carrier. Yawn (read the summary if you must, at url.at/ayAB6, page 162), but we find it interesting that the bulky envelope contains (copies of) the ship's muster books. Apart from confirming that the Age of Bureaucratic Centralization is indeed upon us, it shows Sam, much preoccupied so far with masts and hemp and rather the Boatswain General, also dealing with personnel matters. In organizations this tends to be a more senior task than buying supplies, though maybe in 1668 people are not "our greatest asset" yet, and seamen are more like "supplies that walk" (or drink). But, as a minimum, it's more work. Lots and lots of additional work, even if Sam just routes the stuff to others. Just the books for this humble little bulk carrier are 12 pages; and they must change all the time, as seamen move in, out, get married, poxed, transferred, dead, etc, etc, etc.
No newspapers in 1668? Surely by now we are convinced otherwise, and the debates of a decade past are long put to rest, but allow me to quote the wisdom imparted on 24 August 1667, ironically to Gazette co-founder and intelligence coordinator Joseph Williamson, by a "J. Cooper" from the humble village of Thurgarton (population in 2011: 440) - as summarized in the State Papers:
-- "Thanks him for suppressing the newsmonger at Nottingham, as they go about their business better for it; if he suppressed all Muddiman's papers [i.e., the Gazette] to the post-masters, it would be a good service, the itch of news being grown a disease" [State Papers Domestic Series, volume 7, digitized at https://books.google.ht/books?id=…, page 415].
Some postmasters, who dispatch the gazettes, have also begun to complain that their sheer weight and number is exceeding what they can handle without more resources. So yes, the newsletters get around and get the people's attention, in Thurgarton perhaps to the point of distraction.
Whether they reach the lower classes may be hard to tell but, closer perhaps to present company's interests, the Gazette often comes across as a communication platform for seamen in particular, or at least for officers. Apart from a multitude of news items on ships arriving or departing with this or that cargo, advertisements have lately been instructive. In late 1667, several issues ended with notice of a relocated lighthouse, advising care around "the place called Black Middings" on the approach to Newcastle.
And the Gazette currently circulating in the taverns, No. 223 of January 2-6, ends with a long notice - half a column, a lot for a 4-column newsletter - on how hundreds of thousands of pounds are coming "towards the payment of Officers and Seamen as follows". The notice is too long to reproduce, but seems designed to keep unpaid seamen from throwing stones at Sam's new windows. Read it at https://www.thegazette.co.uk/Lond…
The slightly confused appearance of today's visit to HRH ("deliver [to] the Duke ... was called in ... and so went out and waited without") is perhaps explained by this note which Matt. Wren, the Duke's secretary, wrote on this day:
-- Jan. 8, Whitehall: M. Wren to Sam Pepys. I appointed you, by mistake, to attend the Duke, but the business is not to be transacted with you, but with the committee of the Council (Calendar of State Papers, shorturl.at/ayAB6, page 160).
This could relate to another appointment, and tomorrow (Jan. 9) Sam will indeed visit the Duke for naught, but it looks more like counter-orders that a runner could have been sent with to catch Sam on his way. Ah well, it was still a productive morning. It also suggests that Sam doesn't turn up every morning at the Duke's chambers just in case he's needed, but by invitation and with an agenda, of which we wonder if any are extant.
Two letters are written for Sam this day, which he should receive shortly:
-- by Captain J. Perriman, to report on his "proceedings in visiting ships in the river from 3 to 7 Jan." No details, but let us hope it doesn't paint the same picture of chaotic demobilization as the report sent "to the Commissioners" by Captain Wm. Hannam from Woolwich, of ships left with "none but the boatswain and some inconsiderable servants", and drifting on the tide or left for locals to pilfer ("the Delph had her fasts stolen", apparently this chronic problem with rope theft again). State Papers (shorturl.at/ayAB6), page 159.
-- by John Tinker from Portsmouth, the sort of letter which could make a lesser man than Sam rush to the theaters indeed: "There is more ironwork to be loaded than the Emser will carry. There is here 100 lasts of tar; you can have 50 now the war is ended, as it will not be spent till great part of it be leaked out". State Papers (shorturl.at/ayAB6), page 160. Wikipedia says a last of pitch is 12 or 14 barrels, so maybe 40 cubic meters and 45 tons of tar in total. The Swallow, a larger ship, is suggested to take all this stuff away, using the Emser's crew. Would that be fine, Mr. Pepys?
No office drudgery today, it's all lords and ladies. Meanwhile, in Portsmouth harbour, Mr Philip Latley, the boatswain of (no less) The Sovereign, is scratching a letter - a rarity, a discussion of Sam between third parties:
Jan. 5, "The Sovereign", Portsmouth Harbour: Philip Latley, boatswain of the Sovereign, to Thos. Hayter. Begs his influence with Sam. Pepys, to procure him a month's liberty to come to London on urgent business.
At last, Sam is one of the norns, hidden puppetmaster of mens' destinies ... or at least of boatswains' destinies. Sacrifices will be laid to draw his benevolent gaze. A whole month, though, that must be some business.
And, since we were asked, a note on sourcing: The heavy tomes into which the Public Records Office compiled this and myriad other letters were digitized by Mr. Google - this one in Michigan State University, of all places. The present volume, edited in 1893 and running to September 1668, is accessible at https://play.google.com/books/rea…. Unfortunately it's a stream and there is no way to download.
Mr. Google's industry is well known but he keeps not his URLs short and wieldy, so for convenience I have also crafted this shortcut: shorturl.at/ayAB6. We will see, if God grants us until then, if it is stable and if Mr. Google long tolerates such backdoors. Both links take you to the book's elegant cover, and from there you can navigate, search, index and have lots of fun. The letters are in impeccable chronological order, and today's entry is at page 157 - as printed in the book and in the page's own URL (ending in GBS.PP157), and corresponding to page 205 on the scroll bar provided by Mr. Google, a further complication. Henceforth we shall endeavour to quote the printed page number in our trusty ayAB6, as the preacher may do upon starting the sermon which (ahem) Sam again didn't seem to attend today, so busy was he with books on why religion goes to seed.
The PRO would have liked us to reference Mr. Latley's letter as "S.P. Dom., Car. II. 232, No. 38", but this seems useful only if one has access to the stacks of originals so maybe we shall not. And this "Car."? Carolus?? In 1893? Really!
Comments
Second Reading
About Friday 24 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
1668. England is at peace. Peace, and its horrors: No more money for the fleet, the troops all demobbed and scattering. The Clerk of the Acts often despairs of getting enough to pay suppliers and keep the King's great Navy afloat.
Oh boo-hoo-hoo? Maybe there is hope - from who else than Henry Jermyn, earl of St. Albans, currently on one of his many missions to Paris (he's travelling light - we saw a pass into France for his suite of just 35 horses and 2 mules on January 14, at https://play.google.com/books/rea…) This one is certainly timely, what with the easily mis-interpreted deal with the Dutch, but on this day St. Albans is with another outsize character, the Venetian ambassador to France, Marc Antonio Giustinian, a.k.a. "Golden Guts" (according to his Wikipedia notice - don't ask), a future doge and a terrific cable writer. Venice is, at this time, still in a bloody fight with the Turk, and has called Christiandom for help. Golden Guts memorializes the meeting for the doge and senate, and you can almost see the glasses of prosecco twinkle as St. Albans does a bit of trade diplomacy:
-- "The earl of St. Albans, who is going to London next week, called on me at this house. (...) He promised to do his best for the levy, but warned me of the difficulties in the way, owing to the reduction of the population by reason of the plague and the war which afflicted that country only a few months ago. In a subdued tone he spoke of their trade in the Levant and that he did not know how the Turks would take it. It seemed to me, however, that this was not the obstacle which he had in mind, but that he introduced the point in order to bring your Excellencies to something more profitable for the royal House of England. Thus he went further and said that if the republic should happen to want to hire ships, it would be easy to fill these with men and cause them to proceed to the Levant, while giving out that the Venetians had purchased them in England. In this way the traders would be protected from suffering harm while the republic would get what it wanted. He stopped at this point and from what I understand Prince Rupert has a squadron of thirteen ships which he would like to turn to advantage either by selling or by hiring. I told the earl that I had no commissions about ships but that to raise the question in London could not fail to do good. Paris, the 24th January, 1667 [old style; 1668]"
Mr. Pepys, new plan: We'll sell or lease out the Navy. Please draft a price list. (What's this about Rupert having a squadron for sale?)
The dispatch is in the Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, vol. 35, No. 272 (https://www.british-history.ac.uk…)
About Thursday 23 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
On this day another senior bureaucrat, well known to Sam, writes a chilling official letter.
Sir Ellis Leighton last came across the radar in March. Sam met him when he worked in the prize office and thinks him a wit (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) and "one of the best companions at a meale in the world" (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) He is now the Secretary of the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa, and had to answer a petition which representatives from Barbadoes had sent him in September, on how they cannot afford to buy slaves at the company's price, and should be allowed to source them directly from Guiny. In November Sam had already picked up a company response (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) but, whether this still came short or another group had petitioned, Sir Ellis is now picking up his quill again.
He writes, of the Barbadoes planters, that "hitherto [it] has been their practice" to "never pay for the negroes they have". And notes the pernicious effects that making slaves too cheap is having on the company: "And as it was testified they had so great a glut of negroes that they would hardly give them their victuals for their labour, and multitudes died upon the Company's hands". Which was a great bother to manage. The letter is in the State Papers' colonial series (America and West Indies), vol. XXII, No. 1680 [https://www.british-history.ac.uk…]
Our Sam, this generally gentle soul, was supposedly an investor in the CRATA, "from 1663" according to the notice this earns him in a National Portrait Gallery catalog of accomplices to the slave trade (https://www.npg.org.uk/learning/d…) One wonders at the evidence, and that statement, and others like it, are not backed by much sourcing or detail. Anyway, after November 1667 the diary ceases to mention Sir Ellis, the witty conversationalist whose company Sam had enjoyed so much; nor can we find any letter to a Mr. Leighton or (as Sam spelled it) Layton, investment or not. Maybe it's just that they now move in different circles. Perhaps reading the company's brief to parliament on how to fairly price negroes had brought into focus what may have been a bit remote and abstract, and caused a malaise, different-values-at-the-time or not. Or perhaps a coffee-house chat, unreported in the Journall. "Ah, Pepys, you think you have problems at the Navy Office. Let me tell you, I would trade them for the headaches this current glut of negroes is causing me".
About Tuesday 21 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Scube: Thank you. In large part. The State Papers also include more stately collections on foreign relations, but the Domestic Series is where the amazingly thorough 19th century archivists who summarized these tens of thousands of obscure manuscripts, put the Naval Office documents. They also contain a wealth of petitions about unpaid bills and unjust arrests, country-life gazette items and miscellaneous red tape and inter-office correspondence that give a street-level view on the little people (usually, on their gripes and problems) which complement the Journal quite nicely. Many bear Sam's fingerprints but he must have dismissed that stuff as too boring for the Journal, and anyway who wants to go back all over the workday when updating their diary?
The Google scans I reference, as well as a University of London version (available from https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) which is just as good but (urgh) all in a modern UTF font, both have search indexes, and putting the purser's, the captain's or their ship's name in there leads to a few mentions here and there. The actual records tend to be in the National Archives at Kew but, alas, have not been digitized. Just Googling the ships' names brings up minutely detailed descriptions in a fantastic database of age-of-sail warships, threedecks.org, and further mentions of The Loyal Merchant in documents from well into the next century, and in Company archives. Whether Capt. White was really bound to a chair is neither documented, nor contradicted by the historical record.
About Tuesday 21 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
On this day, perhaps while Sam was out of the office, someone else wrote a report on a sordid affair in which the purser of the Loyal Merchant, lately one of the Navy's major hired ships, accuses its captain Isaac White of the ageless trick of over-reporting the crew's size, and of having had him thrown into jail when he wouldn't play along. Sam would know the case well, as the report includes his notes from the captain's interrogation. Interestingly, the notes are recorded as "in Pepys' shorthand" [State Papers No. 20-II, https://shorturl.at/ayAB6 page 181], confirming that he was there in the action, and that his duties extend to enforcement and fraud investigations. We can imagine him, scratching away while the captain, bound to a chair and with a large lantern in his face, deals with one of the more muscular clerks.
But why him? Sam's no mere note-taker. Financial crime, financial cop. And then, he's good with captains. And then... much, much to Sam's puzzlement, the office asks him, in such cases, to sing "Beauty Retire" to the subject, again and again. It's a hard nut indeed that doesn't crack after a couple of hours of that, or a reading of Boyle's "Hydrostatics".
The case apparently goes nowhere. In a month [State Papers, page 241], the purser gets a honorable discharge as Sam writes again to get him paid back the security which kept him in his job (relations can't have improved with the captain after today). Captain White soon resurfaces, still a captain and on another ship - though a smaller one, the Wren, so perhaps he didn't really shine in Sam's transcript. The Loyal Merchant goes on to a decades-long career, at one point passing to the East India Company.
About Monday 20 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Once again Mr. Pepys was at absolutely the right dinner party, to hear of a deal with the Dutch that (we all use the Gregorian calendar, right?) will not even be signed before the 23rd. This would seem to be a leak, maybe authorized. Or was there some public announcement out of the Hague? He seems fainly surprised. Clearly the triple alliance is above his pay grade, but he could have been told in advance at the Office to pump up the victualling a bit.
In any case the news must be getting around, as today Mr. Thomas Holden ("a merchant", as per https://www.britishmuseum.org/col…) writes "to Hickes" that "It is reported that the King intends to put out 110 men-of-war this spring, and the Dutch 100 more, against the French" (State Papers, https://shorturl.at/ayAB6, p. 176). "Against" as in "to defend against", in the very unfortunate event we have to, and we're pretty sure Charles will do no such thing, but still; that would a be lot of ships to mobilize. It may call for more biscuits.
As for the horses, well, why not being nice to Louis, someone we can't really fight and might just be signing another treaty with in the not too distant future. And the French also just seem to love English horses. Since early November, it's a total of 292 horses that various dispatches reported crossing the channel, gifts (or trade) to various French grandees, including the 17 nice ones for the Most Christian, and a whole herd of 140 conveyed by the highly francophile Sir George Hamilton just yesterday (State Papers, p. 178, No. 195). That's great, because what other luxury goods does England have on offer, exactly?
About Tuesday 14 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Susan, we concede that your interpretation is so much more consistent with the Weymouth dispatch as to be, in fact, correct. Our minde had just recoiled at the possibility of so brazen a deed as seizing a ship in dock, but we also now do find that Mr. Muddiman was suffered to report the embarrassing incident in his Gazette (No. 216 of Jan. 13-16, page 2, col. 2), and clarifies that (a) the ship was part of a caravan that had sought shelter from a storm, (b) it was indeed "seised on by an Ostender and carryed off", and (c) the captain was not "let go" (hey, captains are good to ransom), but happened to be on shore; only the English customs-men did the Ostender have "the kindness" (how touching), and the great wisdom, to leave alone.
"Ostender" in 1668 is a loaded term. Ostend is indeed part of the United Provinces, but must have been a thorn in their side as the main base for the infamous Dunkirkers, privateers with a decades-long record of working for Spain. Their concise history at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dun… is a bit blank on the 1660s, but clearly they're still available and Spain is still technically at war with Portugal until February, so no problem there.
One could still, if of a sinful disposition, build an alternative history in which the Portuguese captain had only pretended to be driven to the coast, was really on a mission, &c. A mission for who? The court in Lisbon did have bigger fish to fry than the fate of Bombay, had traded it off for help in Europe against Spain. But that didn't mean a lack of interest in India, where Portugal had plenty of other bases and controlled land well beyond Bombay (see the map at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Por…) Brazil is fine, but why should it be enough, and aren't we all agreed that the real riches are in the Orient?
On the ground, anyway, the Portuguese viceroy and governor have been doing all they could to stop, delay or contain the transfers to England. As of 1668 they have lost bits and pieces and Bombay has a hands-on governor, a Capt. Gary, who is doing a bit more than his predecessors to fortify the island - but it's nothing like what the Company, already a formidable entity, could (and will) deploy. If Sam had worked for the EIC (and who knows if he didn't get the pitch?) he likely wouldn't have complained as much of not getting resources (why, Mr. Pepys, in the private sector of course you would have that coach already!) But, anyway, life went on. Many of the Portuguese just got rebadged as Company men. Portugal retreated to Goa and will cling to it until 1974.
About Monday 13 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
At this time the shortened link works on all our devices, of both the Windows and the Android persuasions. It does lead us to a large blackish (actually dark green) rectangle but, on close inspection, this proves to be the embossed cover of the book, and at the bottom of the page we find a sliding cursor to navigate inside the volume. The full link, https://play.google.com/books/rea…, is a mouthful and its termination is specific to each page, but if it is more serviceable we shall now favour it.
About Tuesday 14 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Not a Pepys matter really, but we also resist not quoting this message sent yesterday from Weymouth: "The Portugal ship in Portland road has been seized and carried to Ostend, notwithstanding being in the King's chamber, within shot of the castle. Only the captain, a boy and some customs' officers on board were let come on shore". [shorturl.at/ayAB6, page 165].
The "Portugal ship". From a country in revolutionary turmoil, former home to a somewhat miffed queen, and that's about to lose its Indian dominions to England. It's not trusted. And it's "within shot of the castle"? Why, if the King should happen to be in Weymouth, on a discreet outing with some mistress... An accidental broadside from the ships' guns... Kaboom. Suinto muito. Who else but the captain and that Persian spy knew of Charles' plans for Bombay anyway? And India stays Portuguese.
About Tuesday 14 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
"At the office all the morning", and then some book-buying and theater. Ah well.
The morning mail has come. At least no summons from the Duke today, yesterday's meeting was frustration enough. But what's this?
Sir William Batten assembles the Officers of the Navy, and their most trusted clerks, in a secure part of the Office. He has a paper in hand.
"Gentlemen, an announcement". Theatrical pause. Wink. "We got 'em!"
Batten waits until the applause and the catcalls subside; cries of "huzzah! Begorra! Gramercy!" And, from the Clerk of the Acts, a slightly crestfallen "Adod!" Then Batten reads the dispatch now come from Portsmouth:
-- "Jan. 13, Portsmouth Ropeyard. Gregory Peachy to the Navy Commissioners. Two rope-makers were taken last Saturday with 14 lb. weight of cable. Captain Tinker and the mayor have secured the pieces, and taken security for the men's appearance until your Honours' pleasure is known" [shorturl.at/ayAB6, page 166].
"Hang' em with their own rope", is one predictable suggestion. Batten continues, "I'd like to thank my lord the mayor of Portsmouth, the Portsmouth watch and justice of the peace, and the many others who helped in this two-month manhunt and who, for the King's security, have to carry on anonymously with their duty... And now I am going to Whitehall to give His Royal Highness the good news. You know his Grace personally tracks the pilfering that's going on" - this with a quick glance at Sam.
Saturday? Why, on Lord's day Peachy didn't know the fiends had been caught, and was still writing of failure and of how hard it was? And of course, they'd send him the bad news, but the good ones go to "the Commissioners", eh?
Will Hewer quietly asks Sam, "you're not going along to the Duke, boss?"
"Well, no. It's not victualling or contracting, see... And I have quite a busy day already".
Well, at least the nightmare is over. Still, they recovered only 14 lbs? Nearly the whole haul has already disappeared into the black market for ropes and yarn.
"Hey boss, how do we know it's them?"
"Well, Peachy had said he 'shall know the yarn again if he can see it'. It's at page 104 in the State Papers". Still... there will be others. Industrial security is a never-ending job.
Thieves and embezzlers everywhere, as if things weren't in enough chaos. If only the Navy was as tidy as Sam's books, office and closet!
Perhaps one day the Society will come up with a solution. Why, if a man's blood can be changed, why not replace other corrupted parts with clockwork? An entire Navy of honest, predictable mechanicall seamen... "Mr. Boyle to carry the experiment". Ha ha.
About Monday 13 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
At least the mail from Portsmouth did not reach the office in time for Tinker's report, of the investigation going nowhere, to be added to the sad menu of today's meeting with the Duke:
-- "Jan. [13]. M. Wren to the Navy Commissioners. The Duke expects them this afternoon. Asks them to inquire into the complaint of embezzlements in the Orange", with reports of "stores embezzled by" the carpenter and the gunner (https://shorturl.at/ayAB6, page 166).
About Monday 13 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Well, no, the mayor's giant lantern is not recorded at page 153 of the Calendar of State Papers. Disregard that typo. The lantern idea had merit, though, and will be passed to the Society for evaluation.
About Monday 13 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
And now this. On that terrible night (page 92) in November, on the very day that Navy Commissioner Col. Middleton was inspecting, individuals that poor Peachy calls "those desperate instruments" (of Hell, maybe) stole 3 hundredweights of the King's tar yarn. 180 kg! It means, a gang, a horsecart, long and deceitful planning! And, on a recent quote of 50s. per cwt (page 140), a loss of, what, 7 and a half pounds!
An inside job is suspected (page 104). A watch was set, workers were warned they'd have to replace anything found missing, the mayor issued a search warrant (page 104), all yarn is now secured at night in the tar-house (pages 153, 156). The mayor also suggested contriving a giant lantern to project onto the clouds a call for help to "Pepysman", as he curiously put it, but this was found to exceed the techniques presently at our disposall. (page 153). All though the blessed 12 days of Christmas, ropemakers were searched from Portsmouth to Gosport (page 156).
But, despite the offer of "a considerable reward" (page 156), all in vain! A 3-page memo to report they "failed" (page 164). And what's this, Mr. Peachy's questioning of the ropemakers was "not much to the purpose"? What, did they fall to drinking and yard-talk? Does Sam have to do everything himself, then? Should he go to Portsmouth?
About Monday 13 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
"Some business" between dinner and Unthanke's. Indeed. And it couldn't make this humdrum Monday much better.
Alone in his beloved closet, chief inspector Pepys fingers the dispatch, written yesterday, that just came in from Portsmouth:
-- "Jan. 12, Portsmouth. John Tinker to Sam. Pepys. I find Mr. Peachy has been very diligent in the search after the yarn; has been examining witnesses, but not much to the purpose". With a 3-page attachment, "Information of John Leverett and 4 others, before Hugh Salesbury, Mayor of Portsmouth, as to the breaking open of the rope-house at Portsmouth, on 16 Nov. last, and stealing 3 cwt. of tar yarn. - 9 Jan. 1668" [Calendar of State Papers, https://shorturl.at/ayAB6, page 164; further page references to the same source].
The rope-yard break-in. Nasty case, that, from a place where news are usually bad. Sam sighs at the depths of human depravity in which his job forces him to wade (it's to steel himself and for necessary professional training, that he browses the back shelves at Martin's, understand). Too sensitive even for the Journall, it is.
The Portsmouth rope-yard is critical to the Navy, which relies on its product to keep its sails from flying away in the breeze. Of late, like other yards full of unpaid workers, that strategic facility been a cauldron near to boiling over. "The people [are] so needy and wicked", and "the house is so weak", that "disorder" and theft are constantly to be feared. The workers had to be "several times pricked and suspended" for skimping on quality, "to make haste to finish their day's work", delivering inferior product of the prescribed diameter but with less than the 14 threads per strand which they should well know are necessary to keep the ropes from breaking (pages 95-96). Imagine if this should happen in some frantic engagement, in full view of the Dutch - who would Parliament call to account, then, hmm?
About Friday 10 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Alternatively our turbaned visitor could possibly have been the infamous Mahomed Bei himself, the Valachian crook (and, horror, apostate) that Evelyn will denounce next year, for passing himself for a top Ottoman commander turned defender of Christians. Evelyn's bio of the man is hilarious, for the utter cheek it describes, even for a time when records took a while to check. As of early 1668, the man could still be in Paris, snookering king Louis and the entire French court, or already in London, where, by September, he will be parading in Oriental dress, showing off the gold chain the French queen gave him. In February 1669 Evelyn will burn him for good in England, presenting his "Three Late Famous Impostors" to Charles himself. If it was indeed Pietro Cisij who blew the whistle (Evelyn will have a good meeting with him in September, his diary says), it begs the question why; revulsion at the apostasy? Petty rivalry among expats? Or, if Cisij was at all a Persian envoy, a chance to embarrass those who had been suckered into bogus deals with the Porte? Who knows, but apparently "Mahomed" carried on, and by 1670 he had an impressive portrait (visible at https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/…) to impress the State Council of Portugal.
About Friday 10 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Pity that Sam, a curious mind whose next move is to buy a book on China, didn't find a way, or the time or interest, to approach this Persian and seems to have only gaped at his turban. The meeting, however, wasn't all about hand-kissing because Charles and the Persian envoy had quite a lot to discuss in early 1668.
It's hard to see what use either nation could really be in the conflict between the Turk and Venice. The latter have called Christendom to help, but it's far, the forces already involved are massive, the trench warfare has been pretty nasty, and - speaking of Sam - the Turk could retaliate at Tangiers if England got involved.
Soon, however, Charles will declare full and formal control of Bombay, which had been in Catherine's dowry but awaited the Portuguese's current moment of weakness to properly change hands. He will entrust it to the East India Company, who will (a) give him a loan of £50,000 for it, and (b) start an empire of some interest to the Navy. That will be on March 27. On April 1, Charles will then write to the King of Persia, England's new neighbor. Today's meeting may have been to find out how the KoP might react and what kind of chocolates to send with the formal letter. That letter would be interesting to see, unfortunately it's not online (anyone with access to the National Archive can look up record E/3/87 f 83 of the British Library's Asian and African Archive). Sam's brush with the turban in the Vane Room was a glimpse of a pretty big chunk of history being made.
About Thursday 9 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Sam is also about to receive a report, penned this day at Portsmouth by "St. John Steventon", a detailed report on "the muster of the Cambridge", a timber carrier. Yawn (read the summary if you must, at url.at/ayAB6, page 162), but we find it interesting that the bulky envelope contains (copies of) the ship's muster books. Apart from confirming that the Age of Bureaucratic Centralization is indeed upon us, it shows Sam, much preoccupied so far with masts and hemp and rather the Boatswain General, also dealing with personnel matters. In organizations this tends to be a more senior task than buying supplies, though maybe in 1668 people are not "our greatest asset" yet, and seamen are more like "supplies that walk" (or drink). But, as a minimum, it's more work. Lots and lots of additional work, even if Sam just routes the stuff to others. Just the books for this humble little bulk carrier are 12 pages; and they must change all the time, as seamen move in, out, get married, poxed, transferred, dead, etc, etc, etc.
About Thursday 9 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
No newspapers in 1668? Surely by now we are convinced otherwise, and the debates of a decade past are long put to rest, but allow me to quote the wisdom imparted on 24 August 1667, ironically to Gazette co-founder and intelligence coordinator Joseph Williamson, by a "J. Cooper" from the humble village of Thurgarton (population in 2011: 440) - as summarized in the State Papers:
-- "Thanks him for suppressing the newsmonger at Nottingham, as they go about their business better for it; if he suppressed all Muddiman's papers [i.e., the Gazette] to the post-masters, it would be a good service, the itch of news being grown a disease" [State Papers Domestic Series, volume 7, digitized at https://books.google.ht/books?id=…, page 415].
Some postmasters, who dispatch the gazettes, have also begun to complain that their sheer weight and number is exceeding what they can handle without more resources. So yes, the newsletters get around and get the people's attention, in Thurgarton perhaps to the point of distraction.
Whether they reach the lower classes may be hard to tell but, closer perhaps to present company's interests, the Gazette often comes across as a communication platform for seamen in particular, or at least for officers. Apart from a multitude of news items on ships arriving or departing with this or that cargo, advertisements have lately been instructive. In late 1667, several issues ended with notice of a relocated lighthouse, advising care around "the place called Black Middings" on the approach to Newcastle.
And the Gazette currently circulating in the taverns, No. 223 of January 2-6, ends with a long notice - half a column, a lot for a 4-column newsletter - on how hundreds of thousands of pounds are coming "towards the payment of Officers and Seamen as follows". The notice is too long to reproduce, but seems designed to keep unpaid seamen from throwing stones at Sam's new windows. Read it at https://www.thegazette.co.uk/Lond…
About Wednesday 8 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
The slightly confused appearance of today's visit to HRH ("deliver [to] the Duke ... was called in ... and so went out and waited without") is perhaps explained by this note which Matt. Wren, the Duke's secretary, wrote on this day:
-- Jan. 8, Whitehall: M. Wren to Sam Pepys. I appointed you, by mistake, to attend the Duke, but the business is not to be transacted with you, but with the committee of the Council (Calendar of State Papers, shorturl.at/ayAB6, page 160).
This could relate to another appointment, and tomorrow (Jan. 9) Sam will indeed visit the Duke for naught, but it looks more like counter-orders that a runner could have been sent with to catch Sam on his way. Ah well, it was still a productive morning. It also suggests that Sam doesn't turn up every morning at the Duke's chambers just in case he's needed, but by invitation and with an agenda, of which we wonder if any are extant.
About Tuesday 7 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Two letters are written for Sam this day, which he should receive shortly:
-- by Captain J. Perriman, to report on his "proceedings in visiting ships in the river from 3 to 7 Jan." No details, but let us hope it doesn't paint the same picture of chaotic demobilization as the report sent "to the Commissioners" by Captain Wm. Hannam from Woolwich, of ships left with "none but the boatswain and some inconsiderable servants", and drifting on the tide or left for locals to pilfer ("the Delph had her fasts stolen", apparently this chronic problem with rope theft again). State Papers (shorturl.at/ayAB6), page 159.
-- by John Tinker from Portsmouth, the sort of letter which could make a lesser man than Sam rush to the theaters indeed: "There is more ironwork to be loaded than the Emser will carry. There is here 100 lasts of tar; you can have 50 now the war is ended, as it will not be spent till great part of it be leaked out". State Papers (shorturl.at/ayAB6), page 160. Wikipedia says a last of pitch is 12 or 14 barrels, so maybe 40 cubic meters and 45 tons of tar in total. The Swallow, a larger ship, is suggested to take all this stuff away, using the Emser's crew. Would that be fine, Mr. Pepys?
About Sunday 5 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
No office drudgery today, it's all lords and ladies. Meanwhile, in Portsmouth harbour, Mr Philip Latley, the boatswain of (no less) The Sovereign, is scratching a letter - a rarity, a discussion of Sam between third parties:
Jan. 5, "The Sovereign", Portsmouth Harbour: Philip Latley, boatswain of the Sovereign, to Thos. Hayter. Begs his influence with Sam. Pepys, to procure him a month's liberty to come to London on urgent business.
At last, Sam is one of the norns, hidden puppetmaster of mens' destinies ... or at least of boatswains' destinies. Sacrifices will be laid to draw his benevolent gaze. A whole month, though, that must be some business.
And, since we were asked, a note on sourcing: The heavy tomes into which the Public Records Office compiled this and myriad other letters were digitized by Mr. Google - this one in Michigan State University, of all places. The present volume, edited in 1893 and running to September 1668, is accessible at https://play.google.com/books/rea…. Unfortunately it's a stream and there is no way to download.
Mr. Google's industry is well known but he keeps not his URLs short and wieldy, so for convenience I have also crafted this shortcut: shorturl.at/ayAB6. We will see, if God grants us until then, if it is stable and if Mr. Google long tolerates such backdoors. Both links take you to the book's elegant cover, and from there you can navigate, search, index and have lots of fun. The letters are in impeccable chronological order, and today's entry is at page 157 - as printed in the book and in the page's own URL (ending in GBS.PP157), and corresponding to page 205 on the scroll bar provided by Mr. Google, a further complication. Henceforth we shall endeavour to quote the printed page number in our trusty ayAB6, as the preacher may do upon starting the sermon which (ahem) Sam again didn't seem to attend today, so busy was he with books on why religion goes to seed.
The PRO would have liked us to reference Mr. Latley's letter as "S.P. Dom., Car. II. 232, No. 38", but this seems useful only if one has access to the stacks of originals so maybe we shall not. And this "Car."? Carolus?? In 1893? Really!