Friday 1 June 1660

This morning Mr. Sheply disposed of the money that the Duke of York did give my Lord’s servants, 22 ducatoons came to my share, whereof he told me to give Jaspar something because my Lord left him out.1 I did give Mr. Sheply the fine pair of buckskin gloves that I bought myself about five years ago.

My Lord took physic to-day, and so come not out all day. The Captain on shore all day.

After dinner Captain Jefferys and W. Howe, and the Lieutenant and I to ninepins, where I lost about two shillings and so fooled away all the afternoon.

At night Mr. Cooke comes from London with letters, leaving all things there very gallant and joyful. And brought us word that the Parliament had ordered the 29th of May, the King’s birthday, to be for ever kept as a day of thanksgiving for our redemption from tyranny, and the King’s return to his Government, he entering London that day.

My wife was in London when he came thither, and had been there a week with Mr. Bowyer and his wife.

My poor wife has not been well a week before, but thanks be to God is well again. She would fain see me and be at her house again, but we must be content. She writes word how the Joyces grow very rich and very proud, but it is no matter, and that there was a talk that I should be knighted by the King, which they (the Joyces) laugh at; but I think myself happier in my wife and estate than they are in theirs.

To bed. The Captain come on board, when I was going to bed, quite fuddled; and himself the next morning told me so too, that the Vice-Admiral, Rear-Admiral, and he had been drinking all day.

23 Annotations

First Reading

Paul Brewster  •  Link

2 ducatoons 3
appears to be another scanning error. Wheatley has it a 22 ducatoons. The 3 crept in because of the footnote that was attached to the word which was misinterpreted by the Gutenberg scanner.

The L&M entry is "22 Duccatons". They do the calculation in a footnote and come up with L6 7s as a value.

language hat  •  Link

ducatoon (OED):
A silver coin formerly current in Italian and some other European states, worth from 5 to 6 shillings sterling.
1611 CORYAT Crudities 285 The greatest [Venetian silver coin] is the duckatoone, which containeth eight livers, that is, sixe shillings. a1659 CLEVELAND Gen. Poems (1677) 40 What mean the Elders else, those Kirk Dragoons, Made up of Ears and Ruffs like Ducatoons? 1672 PETTY Pol. Anat. 385 Weighty plate pieces, together with ducatoons, making about three quarters of the money now current in Ireland. 1704 Royal Proclam. 18 June in Lond. Gaz. No. 4029/1 Duccatoons of Flanders, Twenty Peny-weight and Twenty one Grains, Five Shillings and Six Pence.

Nix  •  Link

22 Ducatoons --

Thanks for the eagle-eyed clarification. I had read it to mean there was a total gift of 22, of which Samuel's share was 3, out of which he had to provide for Jaspar (whoever that might be).

Roger Miller  •  Link

Jasper has appeared twice before. Once on 8th March and again on 19th March.

An annotation on http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… says that L&M identify him as a negro footman to Montagu.

This is the last we hear of him.

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

Keeping up with the Joyces.

"She writes word how the Joyces grow very rich and very proud, but it is no matter, and that there was a talk that I should be knighted by the King, which they (the Joyces) laugh at; but I think myself happier in my wife and estate than they are in theirs."

So there. Pssffft! Good for you, Sam.

Glyn  •  Link

The Joyces are cousins of the Pepys, but definitely not kissing cousins. They've appeared a few times before in the diary: see 26 Jan, 29 Jan (and Eric Walla's comment) and 3 February, usually with negative comments from our Sam.

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Lawrence  •  Link

I wonder if he had been knighted, if it would have changed the way history view's him? I don't remember him getting a mention in any of my history lessons; It was later in life when I started to read again that I would from time to time see references to his diary, it was then that I started to collect the L.M. edition of the diarys, I wonder how most other people came to gain an interest in (Sir) Samuel Pepys?

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Today both Commons and Lords -- the King in attendance -- take legal measures to efface the Interregnum.

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Interesting that as one servant appears to have been left out of the gratuities, the others club together to see him all right.

MarkS  •  Link

It's interesting to see how bribery is totally standard in society at this time. When Sheply gives Pepys a share of the money, Pepys feels obliged to give him a gift of expensive gloves in return, presumably to thank him for being given a good share. Everything is done on the basis of personal obligations and 'you rub my back, I'll rub yours'.

I also noted a couple of weeks ago when Pepys was writing out the orders to various officers to give them posts on various ships, the officers felt obliged to give gifts of money to Pepys when he presented them with their commissions.

Bill  •  Link

Bribery seems a harsh term for this practice.

John Matthew IV  •  Link

We recently discussed the prefix "be-" and its decline.

However today we read the word "fuddled." Nowadays, "befuddled" is much more common than "fuddled."

And "fuddled" is a great way to describe how you feel after drinking all day!

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"And brought us word that the Parliament had ordered the 29th of May, the King’s birthday, to be for ever kept as a day of thanksgiving for our redemption from tyranny, and the King’s return to his Government, he entering London that day."

Texts in the Commons Journal of 30th May
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

In 1661 a form of prayer for this day of Thanksgiving was ordained in Convocation. It was printed, along with those for the other 'state holy-days' (e.g. Charles I's execution, 30 January.), in all Anglican prayer-books until 1859.
(L&M note)

A FORM of PRAYER with THANKSGIVING
to Almighty God, For having put an end to the great Rebellion, by the Reſtitution of the King and Royal Family, and the Reſtoration of the Government after many Years interruption; which unſpeakable Mercies were wonderfully completed upon the Twenty-ninth of May, in the Year 1660.
And in Memory thereof, that Day in every Year is, by Act of Parliament appointed to be for ever kept holy. [from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer]
http://justus.anglican.org/resour…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Massachusetts Bay Colony

The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally The Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The lands of the settlement were in southern New England, with initial settlements on two natural harbors and surrounding land about 15.4 miles (24.8 km) apart—the areas around Salem and Boston, north of the previously established Plymouth Colony. The territory nominally administered by the Massachusetts Bay Colony covered much of central New England, including portions of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by the owners of the Massachusetts Bay Company, including investors in the failed Dorchester Company, which had established a short-lived settlement on Cape Ann in 1623. The colony began in 1628 and was the company's second attempt at colonization. It was successful, with about 20,000 people migrating to New England in the 1630s. The population was strongly Puritan and was governed largely by a small group of leaders strongly influenced by Puritan teachings. It was the first slave-holding colony in New England, and its governors were elected by an electorate limited to freemen who had been formally admitted to the local church. As a consequence, the colonial leadership showed little tolerance for other religious views, including Anglican, Quaker,[1] and Baptist theologies.

The colonists initially had good relationships with the local Indians, but frictions developed which led to the Pequot War (1636–38) and then to King Philip's War (1675–78), after which most of the Indians in southern New England made peace treaties with the colonists (apart from the Pequot tribe, whose survivors were largely absorbed into the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes following the Pequot War). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mas…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Notable criminal prosecutions

One of the first to be executed in the colony was Dorothy Talbye, who was apparently delusional. She was hanged in 1638 for murdering her daughter, as the common law of Massachusetts made no distinction at the time between insanity (or mental illness) and criminal behavior.[75] Midwife Margaret Jones was convicted of being a witch and hanged in 1648 after the condition of patients allegedly worsened in her care.[76]

The colonial leadership was the most active in New England in the persecution of Quakers. In 1660, English Quaker Mary Dyer was hanged in Boston for repeatedly defying a law banning Quakers from the colony.[77] Dyer was one of the four executed Quakers known as the Boston martyrs. Executions ceased in 1661 when King Charles II explicitly forbade Massachusetts from executing anyone for professing Quakerism.[78].
1 June -- Quaker Mary Dyer was hanged on Boston Common in 1660
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mas…

Neil Wallace  •  Link

Thank you Terry (and Samuel) for getting us going again on an informative, entertaining, and life-enhancing journey!

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"This morning Mr. Sheply disposed of the money that the Duke of York did give my Lord’s servants, 22 ducatoons came to my share, whereof he told me to give Jaspar something because my Lord left him out."

As Britain grapples with its past, we know slavery was a big deal in the 17th century, and assume all the white people were evil, cruel racists.
I suspect Sheply and Pepys' attitude to Jaspar was pretty typical at the time. There was a hierarchy, yes, but it was largely based on the role the person played in society. White servants mostly lived awful lives too. Read Dickens -- the good ol' days were ghastly for 99 percent of the population.

When Pepys refers to slavery, it's in terms of the Barbary Pirates who captured and took over a million Europeans to North Africa. The Brits were passing the hat in church raising buy-back funds all the time.

In the 1650's Cromwell and his gang had sent captured Scottish and Irish soldiers to the New World, where their lot was just as deadly as those of the Africans. Inconvenient white people were exported to Barbados almost as a matter of routine.

Clearly Jaspar was a respected member of Montagu's household.

This article is well worth reading to put things into perspective. Yes, there were enslaved people, and their lot differed by household. There were also free people of color living in London for generations. Some of them had amazing lives -- which we are slowly discovering from long-lost journals as their work was usually credited to others.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…

Keith Phelps  •  Link

A few observations on today's entry and comments.

Gratuities not really bribes were a large part of why people paid good money to the previous holders of offices to take them over as the salary was a small part of the earnings potential of any higher office.

I asked a question in the forum last year:
Why was Pepys never recognised by award of a knighthood or honourable?

I got an answer which I thought made sense of that:

This is a big generalisation, but I think part of the answer to this question is the very different mindset, and in particiular the attitude to station (as in one's station in life) in the 17th C. We tend now to see honours as a recognition of worth / endeavour / achievement, but in Pepys' day rank was seen overwhelmingly as something one was born with, and it was extremely unusual for "commoners" to achieve higher rank, however hard they worked. It's true some court favourites were given titles, but mostly that was for personal "services" or friendship, rather than for being an efficient administrator!

I've been addicted to Pepys and his meanderings for a good number of years, introduced to it by Bob Geldof when he chose the diary as his chosen book on Desert Island Disks, I wonder how many others picked up from that.

RLB  •  Link

And... that footnote neatly answers my question of two days ago.

Keith Phelps  •  Link

RLB It was your question that prompted me to add that note.

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