Sunday 3 June 1660

Waked in the morning by one who when I asked who it was, he told me one from Bridewell, which proved Captain Holland. I rose presently to him. He is come to get an order for the setting out of his ship, and to renew his commission.

He tells me how every man goes to the Lord Mayor to set down their names, as such as do accept of his Majesty’s pardon, and showed me a certificate under the Lord Mayor’s hand that he had done so. At sermon in the morning; after dinner into my cabin, to cast my accounts up, and find myself to be worth near 100l., for which I bless Almighty God, it being more than I hoped for so soon, being I believe not clearly worth 25l. when I came to sea besides my house and goods.

Then to set my papers in order, they being increased much upon my hands through want of time to put them in order. The ship’s company all this while at sermon. After sermon my Lord did give me instruction to write to London about business, which done, after supper to bed.

30 Annotations

First Reading

Vince  •  Link

100 L is £9000 equivalent in todays money (from the http://eh.net/hmit/ppowerbp/pound… ), I guess relativly speaking at age 26 in 1660 and with a regular income and excluding house and possessions this makes SP fairly well off unless he gambles it all away or spends it on clothes and musical instruments!

vincent  •  Link

Pay: todays entry sailor is 930L/month vs 19s(5 1/4d per day) in 1660 (in the 50s it was less than 7L /month or 28s a week: For stealing 5s and a 1d you could be hung > oh well
current data from:

http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/rn/i…

Paul Brewster  •  Link

not clearly worth 25l. when I came to sea besides my house and goods
L&M footnotes that "He owned a lease of his house, not the freehold." This seems to confound a bit the modern sense of personal monetary worth.

Grahamt  •  Link

Re: "...confound a bit the modern sense of personal monetary worth."
An owned lease would be part of personal wealth. Even in modern Britain, a lease can be bought and sold, and inflates with the cost of housing even though its validity shortens with time. A London leasehold can cost more than a provincial freehold on a similar property.
Property often has 25 or 99 year leases, so can be traded by many people before it expires.

Jenny Doughty  •  Link

I think the laws regarding leasehold are different in the US. In the UK, I own an apartment with a lease over 100 years long on it. The ground rent (payable to the freeholder) is very small in comparison to the value of the property and on an older lease is tiny. In terms of selling property, a long lease is almost as good as freehold, and often leases can be extended when the property changes hands (mine was). If Sam owned a decent length lease, as far as he is concerned he pretty much owns his house. Do we have any information about the nature and length of his leasehold agreement?

Philip  •  Link

Re Leaseholds. The law in the US is very similar to that of the UK with regard to leases, but they appear to be used more for commercial development and finance in the US. Ground leases of 60 or more years are often used in the construction and financing of such things as shopping malls and office buildings. The chief difference (it appears to me) is that in the US, there is a strong preference for fee ownership for single family residences and townhouses or garden apartments. In multistory buildings, there is an increasing preference for condominium ownership, which is a form of fee ownership as well. However, leaseholds are very common in Hawaii.

From the previous entries in the diary Pepys's lease appears to have been an oral agreement and seems to have extended from quarter to quarter, but this is only speculation on my part. The Statute of Frauds, 29 Car. II, c. 3, entitled "An Act for the Prevention of Frauds and Perjuries," was not enacted until 1678.

Colin Gravois  •  Link

Regarding references to the Lord Mayor today and in days past (he's referring to London's chief magistrate, I suppose) whereby it seems to be within his honor's purview to validate pardons in the name of the sovereign, who by the way is still on not very firm ground. Was that a common working relationship between Lord mayors and kings or is it just because we're in a still very unsettled time. Or is this a Lord mayor with clout who's destined to play a future role in the government?

Nix  •  Link

In the U.S., there seems to be a strong cultural bias in favor of land ownership rather than ground leasing. I suppose this stems from our having so much land relative to European countries. Also, unlike the British legal system, our law has always favored free alienability of land -- very little entailment or the other devices developed in Medieval times to keep property in the family. Even many experienced real estate lawyers have a hard time accepting the idea that a long term ground lease, with continuing options to renew, is "as good as" ownership in fee simple.

Roger Miller  •  Link

This is an entry from the diary of Ralph Josselin of Earls Colne for 6th June 1660

"Rode to lay claim to the King's pardon before the Mayor of Colchester"

http://linux02.lib.cam.ac.uk/earl…

vincent  •  Link

Freehold/Leasehold : Simple enough: long term family planning versus the quarterly results:
Ownership or oweing which is better:
This is the debate of centuries: To accumulate: To Own: Have control:Empires etc.:
To own Freehold ,Ground Rights,Air Rights 'tis the Fun of Lawyers to argue over:
Land and its control and What it Produces?, is still the essence of true Wealth: Freedoms,this is the true debate?( not how romantic it is to own a race horse(or title) or any other symbol of worth etc.)(Please do (not) speak of the ****** lucre)
Inflation /Deflation What is a Mans time worth: Why King? Why Parliament? Land cannot be Printed except in Holland and a few other spots on the Globe.

vincent  •  Link

"Waked ..morning by one who when I asked who it was, he told me one from Bridewell, which proved Captain Holland. I rose presently to him."
Quite a sense of 'umour. "world turn'd upside down".

jamie yeager  •  Link

Even aside from the leasehold value
Sam now reports a quadrupled net worth as a result of the voyage (100l vs 25l). And he has the Lord's promise in the last few days of even more to come. No wonder he's in no hurry to run off to London, even to see his wife...

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"He tells me how every man goes to the Lord Mayor to set down their names, as such as do accept of his Majesty’s pardon, and showed me a certificate under the Lord Mayor’s hand that he had done so."

L&M note "Soldiers and sailors were among the first to claim the pardon offered in the King's Declaration of Breda. The Lord Mayor issued and signed printed certificates for this purpose...." citing the Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Charles II, 1660-1, p 37. [ available online for £30 for one year's access ].
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

Bill  •  Link

Does anyone else find "vincent" annoying?

Mary K  •  Link

Not every annotator's style suits every reader. In the course of the original run-through we learnt to glide across the annotations that regularly irritated and to concentrate on those that struck a more cogent note. On the whole we proved to be a pretty tolerant group and I hope that we shall remain so throughout the second reading.

Bill  •  Link

Point taken. I'll give it my best try.

arby  •  Link

Agreed, the annotators were tolerant and helpful to this Pepys n00b when I first found the Diary, either years ago or years in the future, depending on how you look at it. I'm really enjoying this second chance, I missed all of this the first time. And, spoiler, there will be annoying annotators still to come, Bill.

Dick Wilson  •  Link

If memory serves, Henry VIII enacted the Statute of Uses, which made land an article of commerce; and that created a need for a Statute of Frauds, which followed a year later. I might be mistaken. I was very young at the time.

Here, however, I do not think that Sam is being precise. Rather, he is bragging to himself "I have a house to live in, goods to furnish it, and L100 in the strong-box!"

Dick Wilson  •  Link

No, Terry. I was thinking of 32 Henry VIII Chap 1. The statutes of Uses, Wills, Frauds and the Parole Evidence Rules seem to originate there. The 1677 Statute of Charles II did not appear out of thin air; it replaced earlier law. Americans today will find it in the Uniform Commercial Code 2-207. For non-Americans: the Uniform Commercial Code is a piece of legislation passed into law by each of the 50 states, in almost, but not quite, identical language.

AndreaLouise Hanover  •  Link

Finding the annotations very useful. Wondering how many years it is going to take me to read the diary. So addictive.

John Matthew IV  •  Link

I plan to read this diary one day at a time, AndreaLouise. So about 10 years overall.

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... when I asked who it was, he told me one from Bridewell, which proved Captain Holland."

What a curious way to introduce yourself. Not like saying you're from Mayfair, Beverly Hills or Beekman Place:
L&M: ... The precinct, running south Bride Lane to the Thames, and west from the Fleet to approx. Water Lane, was extra-parochial and densely inhabited. ..."

They are friends, so I'm guessing this was a joke, a detail Pepys omits to mention since he was in on it.

MartinVT  •  Link

25l became 100l in a few months. Not bad compensation for helping to ferry the King across the North Sea. Reminder: you can track the growth in Sam's wealth here: https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…, but doing so is a bit of a spoiler.

David G  •  Link

Though he would have been worth more if he had recognized right away that he should not play ninepins for money.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Meanwhile in Parliament in Westminster

Thanksgiving Day.
Mr. Finch reports, that, according to the Commands of this House, he carried to the Lords the Petition for setting apart a Day of publick Thanksgiving; and their Answer, "That that whole House doth unanimously concur, with this House, in that Petition to be presented to his Majesty:" The same being as followeth; viz.

To the King's most Excellent Majesty:

Humbly shew unto our Sovereign Lord the King, the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled:

That such is the inestimable Blessing of your Majesty's Restitution to your Royal Throne, which, at once, hath put a Period to the Calamities of Three Kingdoms, and to all the Sorrows and Sufferings of your Royal Person and Family, that we cannot but account it is an Entrance into that State of Joy and Happiness, which obligeth all your Subjects to render an everlasting Tribute of Praise and Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for these glorious Mercies, which he hath vouchsafed to his afflicted People.

And to the End that some solemn Time may be set apart for the publick Performance of this Duty, and that all your Majesty's Subjects in England and Wales, and the Town of Berwick upon Tweed, who equally share in the Joys of this Deliverance, may be united in those Devotions, which are offered for it;

¶We therefore humbly beseech your Majesty, that your Majesty will be pleased, by your Royal Proclamation, to set apart some such Day for a publick Thanksgiving, throughout all these your Majesty's Dominions, as to your Majesty's great Wisdom shall seem meet.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…

RM  •  Link

Sam might have been worth more had he not played ninepins for money, but he may have seen it as a necessary investment in the web of relationships that existed in this era of patronage and favour, particulalry with 'My Lord'.

His rival, the puritan Creed, could have saved more money and kept his desk relatively clear of paper, but ultimately gained less out of such an opportunity.

Still, quadrupling peronal wealth in a couple of months – no wonder Creed was put out at not getting the secretary job on this trip.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Commons' Thanksgiving Day Proclamation (posted above) ordained that "some solemn Time...be set apart for the publick Performance of this Duty, and that all your Majesty's Subjects in England and Wales, and the Town of Berwick upon Tweed"

Why "the Town of Berwick upon Tweed" -- as though it is as sovereign as England and Wales?

Berwick-upon-Tweed has long existed on the borders of change between England and Scotland – a predicament that’s led to the creation of an altogether different identity
https://www.bbc.com/travel/articl…

Log in to post an annotation.

If you don't have an account, then register here.