Dorset Richard
Annotations and comments
Dorset Richard has posted four annotations/comments since 28 June 2024.
The most recent first…
Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
Dorset Richard has posted four annotations/comments since 28 June 2024.
The most recent first…
Comments
Third Reading
About Saturday 31 August 1661
Dorset Richard • Link
I was trying to read more on the Benevolence, but the Wikipedia article on them says that the last one was under James I.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben…
Interesting, when Sam seems quite definite about this one under Charles II.
Just Wikipedia being wrong, or was the Charles II one somehow different? Possibly, since Mary (above, 1st reading) says that this one was voted in by Parliament, whereas previous ones were Royal initiatives designed to bypass Parliament.
About Tuesday 27 August 1661
Dorset Richard • Link
Sam finally sacked his own sister, Pall, just two days ago, and now his wife is trying to make him find a position for her brother Balty. Tactless timing!
About Monday 8 July 1661
Dorset Richard • Link
No diary entries for nearly a week? I’m diagnosing a humongous hangover after too much wine at his uncle’s funeral yesterday (Sam having been drowning either his grief or, more likely, his disappointment at not having been left anything substantial).
About Thursday 27 June 1661
Dorset Richard • Link
“ I could pay ready money 600l. and the rest by 150l. per annum, to make up as much as will buy 50l. per annum”
I read this as meaning that the seller, his Uncle Robert, wants to get enough money from the sale of the land to get himself an income of £50 per year.
Interest rates then were, from what I’ve been able to find online, around 4% to 5%, so his uncle would be looking to get something in the range £1,000 to £1,250 from Sam for the land, which he could invest and get around £50 per year in interest.
That roughly fits with Sam’s proposal of paying £600 up front and £150 per year until he’s paid the full price; if my figures above are right, it would take him about four years to pay it off, which sounds about right for this sort of informal arrangement.
That makes sense for his uncle as well; he’s getting older and would probably rather have an easy income from interest rather than the hassle of managing land, so rather than thinking directly of the price for the land, he’s thinking of how much interest he wants to get from investing the proceeds.