The Gazette's website was designed by Isaac Newton, who had rediscovered the secrets of an ancient race of magicians. Alas, he encyphered it for use by other Initiates only, and that knowledge is now lost.
But there is a shortcut: the Invocation for number 221, the edition of December 26-30, is
Use the template for any other edition; it comes out every 4 days or so. Uncharacteristically there's only one page for this one, but it's a good one ("Extra! Janissaries revolt in Constantinople! Behold the Extravagant Largesse of the new Cardinal de Medici! Ship sails from Hull with fish and lead!!") There is a Button to download the pdf, and a Clever Devyce that ordinarily allows to toggle to page 2.
This would be Mr. Muddiman's Gazette. Apparently his boss Mr. Williamson also sent a news-letter of his own, for which it would be interesting to find a similar archive. May I add that the French gazette of M. de Renaudot looks, by comparison, like something out of the 16th century?
The mailbag delivered to the Office today contained the usual chaos ("I couldn't keep my appointment 'coz I was arrested by this guy who was a prisoner on my ship when we were forced to the coast of Guinea", &c., &c.) and this letter personally to Sam:
From St. John Steventon, clerk of the cheque, in Portsmouth, January 4: (...) Most of the Milford's men, despairing of pay, have left the ship without license; but having marked them as runaway, they begin to return. Asks whether to re-enter them, or continue them by removing the R, and only checking them for the absent time.
The "R" mark of infamy on the roster... How do you remove it, truly? A strike of the quill would still leave it visible. An eraser will leave a tell-tale Abrasion. Gotta burn the whole book, is what.
And more reports of Theft of Ropes, of course. Ropes and cables are an incredibly hot commodity, ropeyards strategic facilities to be protected or broken into, a rope stolen from the ship something worth informing Westminster and a crime to be sternly punished. Sam has enjoyed this from the hemp-side but, ah, if ropes could talk...
Also on January 3, Wren wrote (and Sam likely received on the same day) from Whitehall a letter asking "in whose hands the Hardereen is, how she is to be disposed of, and at what value they compute her". This is recorded (at http://3decks.pbworks.com/w/page/…) as a flyboat captured in 1665 from the Dutch, and its case must have been complicated as she will take another 3 years to sell.
And, on the same day, we can imagine Sam shaking his head at an item in the Gazette (dated December 23-27, but which must be hitting the street around today as it contains an article dated January 1) on the travails of poor Clarendon, whom Louis has now ordered to decamp to Rouen. And this is sandwiched between two notices of the plague breaking out again, in 50 houses in Lille and 50 houses in Douai, and of every vacant house comandeered in Douai for guns and ammo for the war in Flanders. His former lordship is now kicked around in a place full of war and plague, with extradition quite possibly in the cards...
Our abject apologies! A dysfluxion of the Minde, which the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is well known to cause (or could it be too much brandy in our chocolate?) has made us confuse calendars. Our references, and the hard-won link cited above, were to the Calendar of State Papers (Domestic Series), compiled by the Public Records Office and in which Mr. Carte had no hand.
"all the morning by particular appointment with Sir W. Pen (...) to even the accounts of our prize business"
A hint of what "evening the accounts" may have entailed came in a letter dated December 18, which may have been on the table during that meeting with Penn, from a "William Newland, purser", summarized thusly in the Carte archive: "The only obstacle on paying his accounts depending with Sir Wm. Penn is an allowance for leakage of brandy and oil; the first by defective casks, and the other by an impossibility to prevent waste of such a liquor in so hot a country". (Carte domestic series, II. 225 No. 33, digitized at https://play.google.com/books/rea…)
Which ship the letter is about isn't clear, but one can imagine the bureaucrats around the table trying all morning to grapple with this: whether the casks were actually leaky, how big the leaks were, and how fast brandy evaporates in Jamaica, in tropical weather which most of them could only imagine, relying of the say-so of suntanned guys like Newland. "Very, verrry hot in the Indys, sirs. Brandy just goes poof. You wouldn't believe. Trust me". Sam, sucking on his pencil, then thinks, "yep, I'm not gambling my money on that sort of risks. Let's just do a bit of colliery around Newcastle and exit".
Greetings from Paris. For some time we have espied England's inner councils through Mr. Pepys, Esq.'s most useful Journall, and would now like to take this opportunity to blow our cover and wish your Society a happy new year 1668. Is this the year we'll invade? Wouldn't you like to know.
For the time being, let us remark upon Mr. Pepys' second-hand report of "Irish in the town" offering £3 and promising 40s. per month to join His Most Christian Majesty's service. He sources this to Capt. Perriman. The captain seems quite sanguine over that business, because on December 28 he wrote to the Navy Commissioners to relate precisely this - in Mr. Carte's summary of his letter, that "some Irishmen about London are endeavouring to seduce English seamen", etc, etc. Note, however, that Pepys quotes a conversation he had on December 31 with the captain, not the letter. It is suggestive of how information is compartmented within the Office, and how much Mr. Pepys, for all his access to the Court and preoccupation with top-level government business, is in the loop of official papers not pertaining to cables, anchors, beer and biscuits, the tedium on which he is, "all day, very busy".
We have found Mr. Carte's archive most invaluable. I know, it doesn't come together before about 70 years after 1668 when I'm writing this, but we have a time machine, and anyway time flows in funny ways on pepysdiary.com. Indeed we also find an undated petition, from "Dec.[ember]?", sent to the King (Charles, not Louis) by 49 officers and soldiers, for "a livelihood, till they can be employed in some foreign country" - which they tried to do in Portugal, only to be kicked out because they're Catholics. Just a reminder that soldiers in 1668 can go as a matter of course where the money is; of course within some reason, and the technical expertise of seamen may be more difficult to replace than the average grunt.
The Carte papers (domestic series) is a bit hard to find online, but currently the 1667-68 papers are at https://play.google.com/books/rea…. The last 3 digits is the page number for this day, January 1. Turn to page 111 for a wholly unrelated but unforgettable petition from "Edward Suckley to the King, for relief", as a list of woes including "his wife's old age of 160 years" prevent him from getting a job. We are moved, also, by a petition from "Wm. Gilom to the Navy Commissioners", now found at page 129, wherein he asks to be paid "tickets granted him for wages as commander" but, regrettably, lost all paperwork as he "can neither read nor write, nor is acquainted with the ways of a purser, and his books were torn and gnawed by rats while he lay sick at Harwich". We can easily imagine the clerks passing that sob story around the office and having a good laugh at the illiterate commander's expense, before kicking it over to Mr. Pepys so he could use some eyesight to fix the matter ...
Comments
Second Reading
About Friday 3 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
The Gazette's website was designed by Isaac Newton, who had rediscovered the secrets of an ancient race of magicians. Alas, he encyphered it for use by other Initiates only, and that knowledge is now lost.
But there is a shortcut: the Invocation for number 221, the edition of December 26-30, is
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/Lond…
Use the template for any other edition; it comes out every 4 days or so. Uncharacteristically there's only one page for this one, but it's a good one ("Extra! Janissaries revolt in Constantinople! Behold the Extravagant Largesse of the new Cardinal de Medici! Ship sails from Hull with fish and lead!!") There is a Button to download the pdf, and a Clever Devyce that ordinarily allows to toggle to page 2.
This would be Mr. Muddiman's Gazette. Apparently his boss Mr. Williamson also sent a news-letter of his own, for which it would be interesting to find a similar archive. May I add that the French gazette of M. de Renaudot looks, by comparison, like something out of the 16th century?
About Saturday 4 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
The mailbag delivered to the Office today contained the usual chaos ("I couldn't keep my appointment 'coz I was arrested by this guy who was a prisoner on my ship when we were forced to the coast of Guinea", &c., &c.) and this letter personally to Sam:
From St. John Steventon, clerk of the cheque, in Portsmouth, January 4: (...) Most of the Milford's men, despairing of pay, have left the ship without license; but having marked them as runaway, they begin to return. Asks whether to re-enter them, or continue them by removing the R, and only checking them for the absent time.
The "R" mark of infamy on the roster... How do you remove it, truly? A strike of the quill would still leave it visible. An eraser will leave a tell-tale Abrasion. Gotta burn the whole book, is what.
And more reports of Theft of Ropes, of course. Ropes and cables are an incredibly hot commodity, ropeyards strategic facilities to be protected or broken into, a rope stolen from the ship something worth informing Westminster and a crime to be sternly punished. Sam has enjoyed this from the hemp-side but, ah, if ropes could talk...
About Friday 3 January 1667/68
Stephane Chenard • Link
Also on January 3, Wren wrote (and Sam likely received on the same day) from Whitehall a letter asking "in whose hands the Hardereen is, how she is to be disposed of, and at what value they compute her". This is recorded (at http://3decks.pbworks.com/w/page/…) as a flyboat captured in 1665 from the Dutch, and its case must have been complicated as she will take another 3 years to sell.
And, on the same day, we can imagine Sam shaking his head at an item in the Gazette (dated December 23-27, but which must be hitting the street around today as it contains an article dated January 1) on the travails of poor Clarendon, whom Louis has now ordered to decamp to Rouen. And this is sandwiched between two notices of the plague breaking out again, in 50 houses in Lille and 50 houses in Douai, and of every vacant house comandeered in Douai for guns and ammo for the war in Flanders. His former lordship is now kicked around in a place full of war and plague, with extradition quite possibly in the cards...
About Tuesday 31 December 1667
Stephane Chenard • Link
Our abject apologies! A dysfluxion of the Minde, which the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is well known to cause (or could it be too much brandy in our chocolate?) has made us confuse calendars. Our references, and the hard-won link cited above, were to the Calendar of State Papers (Domestic Series), compiled by the Public Records Office and in which Mr. Carte had no hand.
About Wednesday 18 December 1667
Stephane Chenard • Link
"all the morning by particular appointment with Sir W. Pen (...) to even the accounts of our prize business"
A hint of what "evening the accounts" may have entailed came in a letter dated December 18, which may have been on the table during that meeting with Penn, from a "William Newland, purser", summarized thusly in the Carte archive: "The only obstacle on paying his accounts depending with Sir Wm. Penn is an allowance for leakage of brandy and oil; the first by defective casks, and the other by an impossibility to prevent waste of such a liquor in so hot a country". (Carte domestic series, II. 225 No. 33, digitized at https://play.google.com/books/rea…)
Which ship the letter is about isn't clear, but one can imagine the bureaucrats around the table trying all morning to grapple with this: whether the casks were actually leaky, how big the leaks were, and how fast brandy evaporates in Jamaica, in tropical weather which most of them could only imagine, relying of the say-so of suntanned guys like Newland. "Very, verrry hot in the Indys, sirs. Brandy just goes poof. You wouldn't believe. Trust me". Sam, sucking on his pencil, then thinks, "yep, I'm not gambling my money on that sort of risks. Let's just do a bit of colliery around Newcastle and exit".
About Tuesday 31 December 1667
Stephane Chenard • Link
Greetings from Paris. For some time we have espied England's inner councils through Mr. Pepys, Esq.'s most useful Journall, and would now like to take this opportunity to blow our cover and wish your Society a happy new year 1668. Is this the year we'll invade? Wouldn't you like to know.
For the time being, let us remark upon Mr. Pepys' second-hand report of "Irish in the town" offering £3 and promising 40s. per month to join His Most Christian Majesty's service. He sources this to Capt. Perriman. The captain seems quite sanguine over that business, because on December 28 he wrote to the Navy Commissioners to relate precisely this - in Mr. Carte's summary of his letter, that "some Irishmen about London are endeavouring to seduce English seamen", etc, etc. Note, however, that Pepys quotes a conversation he had on December 31 with the captain, not the letter. It is suggestive of how information is compartmented within the Office, and how much Mr. Pepys, for all his access to the Court and preoccupation with top-level government business, is in the loop of official papers not pertaining to cables, anchors, beer and biscuits, the tedium on which he is, "all day, very busy".
We have found Mr. Carte's archive most invaluable. I know, it doesn't come together before about 70 years after 1668 when I'm writing this, but we have a time machine, and anyway time flows in funny ways on pepysdiary.com. Indeed we also find an undated petition, from "Dec.[ember]?", sent to the King (Charles, not Louis) by 49 officers and soldiers, for "a livelihood, till they can be employed in some foreign country" - which they tried to do in Portugal, only to be kicked out because they're Catholics. Just a reminder that soldiers in 1668 can go as a matter of course where the money is; of course within some reason, and the technical expertise of seamen may be more difficult to replace than the average grunt.
The Carte papers (domestic series) is a bit hard to find online, but currently the 1667-68 papers are at https://play.google.com/books/rea…. The last 3 digits is the page number for this day, January 1. Turn to page 111 for a wholly unrelated but unforgettable petition from "Edward Suckley to the King, for relief", as a list of woes including "his wife's old age of 160 years" prevent him from getting a job. We are moved, also, by a petition from "Wm. Gilom to the Navy Commissioners", now found at page 129, wherein he asks to be paid "tickets granted him for wages as commander" but, regrettably, lost all paperwork as he "can neither read nor write, nor is acquainted with the ways of a purser, and his books were torn and gnawed by rats while he lay sick at Harwich". We can easily imagine the clerks passing that sob story around the office and having a good laugh at the illiterate commander's expense, before kicking it over to Mr. Pepys so he could use some eyesight to fix the matter ...