Saturday 13 September 1662
Up betimes and to my office, and we sat all the morning, and then at noon dined alone at home, and so among my work folks studying how to get my way sure to me to go upon the leads, which I fear at last I must be contented to go without, but, however, my mind is troubled still about it. We met again in the afternoon to set accounts even between the King and the masters of ships hired to carry provisions to Lisbon, and in the evening Mr. Moore came to me and did lie with me at my lodgings. It is great pleasure to me his company and discourse, and did talk also about my law business, which I must now fall upon minding again, the term coming on apace. So to bed.
12 Annotations
First Reading
Terry F • Link
"We met...to set accounts even between the King and the masters of ships hired to carry provisions to Lisbon"
L&M note: "The merchant ships hired for the purpose [ 6 April ] had not returned all the naval stores lent to them...."
Terry F • Link
"my law business"
L&M note: "The dispute in Chancery with the Trices about Robert Pepys's will."
Leslie Katz • Link
"the term coming on apace"
At that time, there were four periods of the year only (four "terms") during which court business was supposed to be done. The one Pepys had in mind as coming on apace was the Michaelmas term, which took place in autumn.
Terry F • Link
"and so among my work folks"
Is this not the first time he has used such a "familiar" term for those he usually calls his "workmen"?
A change of tone as he tries to enlist them in his effort to gain precious access to the leads? -- worth far more than a farthing to him, as we knew!
C.J.Darby • Link
Mr. Moore came to me and did lie with me at my lodgings. In what sense does he mean "lie with me" does he mean relax on a couch. He then ends "So to bed"
Mary • Link
"lie with me"
Pepys simply means that Mr. Moore spent the night at his (Pepys') lodgings. Moore may have used a truckle bed, he may have shared Sam's bed (by no means an unusual action and one with no sexual significance at all) or he may have slept on some other couch. Without further information there is no way of knowing.
Bradford • Link
---Just as nowadays I might say that "So-and-so stayed the night at my place." Elsewhere in the Diary there's a fair amount of folks sleeping over at other people's houses; and without a wink or a nudge, it's a neutral phrase.
Australian Susan • Link
In the same vein - bed-sharing was commonplace at that time (and into the 19th century) in inns and private houses, but it didn't imply anything other than sleeping. Indeed when Sam says Mr Moore did "lie with" him, he probably meant he shared the same (commodious) bed. It is interesting that when Sam travels, he always records if he had a room or a bed to himself (though often Will is in there too, even if only on the floor) - this is a status point with Sam: he wants everyone to know, publicly, that he is important enough to command personal space. Here in his lodgings privately with Mr M, he doesn't need to impress, nor is he sensitive about status.
David A. Smith • Link
"which I fear at last I must be contented to go without"
Among the diary's fascinations is its transparent-skull complex interplay of the levels of Sam's mind. Here he seems almost to be pleading with his emotional self not to be angry with his intellectual self for failing to solve the leads-access problem.
language hat • Link
"bed-sharing was commonplace at that time (and into the 19th century)"
And into the 20th. My father had to share a brother's bed in the 1920s in Oklahoma (and they had to sleep on the porch because the bedrooms indoors were taken up with other siblings -- the girls, of course, got to be indoors).
Second Reading
john • Link
Loss of Leades should not be taken lightly if we go by the number of times that he and Elizabeth walked upon them for pleasure. Presumably, only one access point exists.
Scube • Link
Does anyone know if Sam loses his access to the leads? The suspense is killing me, but I don't want to read ahead.