Ashley Smith

Annotations and comments

Ashley Smith has posted 11 annotations/comments since 24 December 2021.

The most recent first…

Comments

Third Reading

About Tuesday 15 May 1660

Ashley Smith  •  Link

Hi Sarah, I too think Sam had doubts about his beliefs but it was such a dangerous time to disclose these thoughts to anyone. It's nice he was able to talk to his boss about this openly, fortifying his working relationship, if nothing else.
I confess I'm an atheist (I prefer plate tectonics and understanding what the weather means, rather than the confusion these two sciences had in creating religion), so I might be biased but in Sam's day there were so many unresolved ideas, laws, variations in how a person worshiped etc in must have been hard to nail down a strict belief one way or other and easier to just go with the flow of peer pressure.

About Saturday 12 May 1660

Ashley Smith  •  Link

I am but a simple man, so please forgive me. After faffing about in the channel for weeks, Sam's ship has finally set sail for the continent, which as he points out isn't far.
'In our way in the morning, coming in the midway between Dover and Calais, we could see both places very easily, and very pleasant it was to me that the further we went the more we lost sight of both lands.'
By the end of the days events there is not talk of arriving anywhere.
I'm sure all will be explained tomorrow, I hope...

About Saturday 31 March 1660

Ashley Smith  •  Link

Hi Sarah, Yes 11th March 2023 ! Sorry I forgot about the UK/US date switcharound thing.
Keep up the great posts.
The rigging section alone on the animation makes your mind boggle.

About Saturday 31 March 1660

Ashley Smith  •  Link

https://youtu.be/4Nr1AgIfajI
This is a link to a 3D animation of the construction/layout of HMS Victory from 1765. 100 years newer but still an old school wooden battleship. Incredible appreciation for the engineering detail and complexity for the time. The animation was only created on 11/3/23. I've watched it 3 times already.

About Friday 24 February 1659/60

Ashley Smith  •  Link

By far my favourite days annotations so far.
It's taken me two 'end of work days' to read it all.
Just a tiny point about the 'view' that Sam doesn't seem to comment on. Apart from the other valid reasons, I'm wondering if the view at that time was mainly of trees, woods and forest.
At one time much of the UK would have been covered in forest, limiting many views, especially on flatter ground. Apart from villages and towns, the view might have just been very similar.
Fields and hedgerows that we know now would have been rarer back then, surely?
Does anyone know what was the field/forest ratio was back then? The population was only just over 5 million. A lot less mouths to feed and therefore land used for agriculture.

Second Reading

About Wednesday 24 February 1668/69

Ashley Smith  •  Link

I've noticed Sam's working ours are very er.. flexible. He works hard but very much seems to work to his own diary hours. Can anyone more enlightened and brighter than me, provide any more details of either Sam or the Navy board's employee working practice or just the working practices of the period in general? Thanks in advance.

About Monday 28 December 1668

Ashley Smith  •  Link

I think the first thing (and probably only) I would do with a time machine is fix Sam's eyes somehow. Lens replacement? Then drop a hint to Sam that he has to continue to write his diary until the day he dies. Pretty please Sam !