26 Annotations

First Reading

gerry  •  Link

per L&M the loan was repaid Mar 1 1662.

Bradford  •  Link

Just try to guess which Elizabethan dramatist wrote "The Woman's Prize or the Tamer Tamed." Yes, it's that Restoration favorite, John Fletcher, who contrived this sequel to "The Taming of the Shrew." Here's an excellent, clear, concise scholarly page devoted to the play, complete with synopsis:

http://emsah.uq.edu.au/drama/flet…

language hat  •  Link

"This night I was forced to borrow 40l"

I thought Sam was rolling in it. Guess I haven't been following the cash flow closely enough.

vicente  •  Link

Shame, we do not have his little morrocan leather bound accounts book. That is that the little book in which he really keeps his real secrets, LSD and farthings. But it does go to show that if the pence [mod: pea, pee] are not kept watch of. the pounds will so disappear.. Speculation!? Mam Ma [mother she was out a spending the nest egg that was not there], Pall or the wifey, or has Sam been down to the coffee shop and buying a piece [a stake] of a ship and not saying? He is one not for talking about 3 card monte, he may have spent too much on Jem? and not saying .
LSD [pound shilling and pence or Libra solidus , denareus ] [ Pund of solidos?]

vicente  •  Link

Playing with a Bladder: Sam doth miss another meeting of the boys: From Evelyn J. 31 july 1661. "... To our Society, where a bladder blowne up onely raised a weight of 24 pound; it was at first flaxid & welted on purpose, & the weight hanged at its bottome, then the wind conveyd thro a pipe that had a valve &c:.." [wind not from peter]

Robert Gertz  •  Link

40 pounds!? Zounds! A short time ago the bulk of his year's salary under Mr. Downing.

Can't believe it was Ms. Beth Pepys' fault, he'd be raging for three entries at least. No, maybe Mum overspent but I'd bet it was Sam and his fine new suits and big renovation plans.

Batten must be rolling in it...

vicente  •  Link

Battens income, I read is 900L per annum basic plus side benefits. Sam 'tis 300L I do believe, but the benefits oh! ah! la! la!. 'tis still reason that one spends a few mill to get a 200,000 blahs public service job.

vicente  •  Link

gleened from history [official, 'tis better than memory]
Slingsby in 1660 earnt 500L as controller
the Clerk of the Acts did earn 350L [Our ladd Sam]

Batten earnt 490L
Penn also got 500L
according to
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

Jesse  •  Link

"This night I was forced to borrow"

Rather sudden. Perhaps not to pay off existing debts but to have some hard cash for the trip ("prepared to go to Walthamstow to-morrow") and other expenses coming up.

Mary  •  Link

borrowing £40.

Pepys hasn’t mentioned being paid recently …. neither for work at the Privy Seal nor for his Navy Office duties…. though earlier in the diary he was quite punctilious about noting what had been paid/what was due. Looks like cash-flow problems.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Sam only gets 250 pds per annum as CofA as he must give over 100 to Mr. Barlow, the former CofA. (Who Sam liked on meeting but no doubt would not regret seeing 6ft under) As one of Downing's clerks he made 50 pds per annum, a nice salary. Hard to imagine the look on Elizabeth's face (if he told her) that they were nearly a former year's salary in arrears and now in debt for same to Batten. "For-for-for...Forty? Forty pounds?! Mon Dieu! Samuel?!!" "At midnight, my wife being somewhat trouble at the size of our debts, I did race to the office, shutting all doors against my insanely raging wife's coming..."

Saul Pfeffer  •  Link

When Sam borrows 40 quid what does he borrow ? Coin ? Is there folding money in circulation ? We know that there was a paucity of ATMs at that time : what was the state of money circulation? Can one you inform me on this vital issue please.

Mary  •  Link

Money.

There's lots of information in the Background 'Money' site.

JWB  •  Link

40L
Mr. Moore was waiting for him at home yesterday.

JWB  •  Link

40L
And Sam wrote a letter to Montagu that night.

dirk  •  Link

"was forced to borrow..."

A clear illustration of the difference between solvability and liquidity (accountancy concepts):Sam was clearly "worth" more than 10 times the 40£ borrowed, but he just didn’t have the cash…

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

"was forced to borrow..."

On 24 May 1661 Sam said that he was "clearly worth 500l. in money." (And in September he will be "worth near 600l.") If he doesn't have 40l. in cash money on hand, where is this 500l. "in money"? Lent out? Owed to him? Where?

Pepys' Wealth: http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…

Matt Newton  •  Link

And will there be interest to pay back on top of the 40 smackers?

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Alfonso IV of Spain to Sandwich
Written from: Madrid
Date: 31 July 1661 [N.S.]
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 73, fol(s). 550
Document type: Original. With impressed seal of arms.

Has received by the hands of the Conde de Toreno the admiral's letter of the 16th inst and also that of the king his master. Has replied to his brother's letter through the channel of his own ambassador in England.

And has given orders to all his chief officers in Spanish ports to render friendly offices to English subjects upon needful occasion.
Spanish.

FROM:
Carte Calendar Volume 32, June - December 1661
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
Edward Edwards, 2005
Shelfmark: MS. Carte Calendar 32
Extent: 464 pages
https://wayback.archive-it.org/or…

@@@

Written in Spanish and not Latin. That's progress.

Alfonso VI, King of Spain -- our Portuguese annotator Pedro always calls him "Afonso" --
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

"the king his master" would be Charles II. And I'm guessing that "my brother" would also be Charles II -- royal brotherhood, in other words. Nothing else seems to make sense.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"Lent out? Owed to him? Where?"

On Quarter Days people received cash from debtors and paid their creditors. They all did it at the same time because of an acute shortage of coins. They lived on credit in the meantime, used tally sticks to keep track of transactions, etc.
Pepys is in a fairly unusual situation in that he gets paid his salary and official bonuses whenever there is money in the Exchequer to do so. And he often records paying people as soon as he receives it.

Recently he has had to pay the painters and stainers, kitchen improvers, and staircase builders. My guess is that's where most of the cash went. And he doesn't want to sell the silverware unless he absolutely has to.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

We have also learned that 150l. has been picked up by the Navy for "repair" of the roof -- but apparently that didn't cover the complete cost of the stairs and redecorating.
Or he might be paying some of his mother's "surprise" bills.

Pepys would tell us more if he wanted us to really understand these financial machinations.

He's not selling the silver yet.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Adm. Edward, Earl of Sandwich's log -- moored in the Algiers Road:

31th July. Wednesday.
In the morning the wind was eastwardly and a great fog. At 12 we had a breeze at North East, with a rolling eastern sea.
The commanders all met together on board me resolved that it was not fitting to make an attempt then, it being little wind and such as the fireships could not go in with, if the boom had been opened, nor could the leewardly squardron berth themselves.
The birthing of ships being agreed upon as followeth: [see diagram on page 93]
Nor could those ships that should birth themselves get off again, if they could perform the work, and the rolling of the sea would be a hinderance to those ships which should ride with their broadsides to it [in the margin] to all the Vice Admiral's squadron.
Immediately after dinner this day the forts and castles of the town began to play upon us, whereupon we resolved of a sudden to veer in a cable or two nearer them and fire our broadsides, which we did for 2 or 3 hours, and then finding the waste of our powder and shot to little purpose, we thought best to warp off out of shot and wait for the opportunity of a wind fitting to carry us in to our attempt, which we did.
Their shot did some hurt to the masts and rigging of many ships and killed some men, and so we were told by a slave that swam off to us the next day that our shot killed many men at the mole head and much took place in the town and some went clear over the town.

Copied from
The Journal of Edward Mountagu,
First Earl of Sandwich
Admiral and General-at-Sea 1659 - 1665

Edited by RC Anderson
Printed for the Navy Records Society
MDCCCCXXIX

Section III - Mediterranean 1661/62

@@@

Algiers - https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

Hoff  •  Link

So a slave swam out to the ship, apparently of his own volition, to bring Sandwich a report on the damage that the cannon balls had done to Algiers. I wonder whether the swimming slave was paid for this intelligence -- or more to the point, how much he was paid, since it's doubtful he would have done this just for the fun of it.

Bryan M  •  Link

The slave was likely escaping from Algiers in the confusion of the bombardment by the English fleet.
Sandwich's fleet was attacking Algiers because it was a base for Muslim privateers/pirates (Barbary Corsairs) who preyed on shipping in the Mediterranean. They also raided coastal areas as far away as England, the Netherlands, and even Iceland and took slaves.
It's possible the escaping slave was English. Freedom and a ride back home could well have been adequate incentive for a dangerous swim. Providing intelligence then just a secondary benefit.

These images help picture what Sandwich was doing.

Algiers circa 1540: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alg…

Algiers circa 1690: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim…
In February 1662 SP reports that the mole at Algiers was severly damaged by a storm and many ships lost.

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