Monday 24 November 1662

Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten, and I, going forth toward White Hall, we hear that the King and Duke are come this morning to the Tower to see the Dunkirk money. So we by coach to them, and there went up and down all the magazines with them; but methought it was but poor discourse and frothy that the King’s companions (young Killigrew among the rest) about the codpieces of some of the men in armour there to be seen, had with him. We saw none of the money, but Mr. Slingsby did show the King, and I did see, the stamps of the new money that is now to be made by Blondeau’s fashion, which are very neat, and like the King. Thence the King to Woolwich, though a very cold day; and the Duke to White Hall, commanding us to come after him, which we did by coach; and in his closett, my Lord Sandwich being there, did discourse with us about getting some of this money to pay off the Fleets, and other matters; and then away hence, and, it being almost dinner time, I to my Lord Crew’s, and dined with him, and had very good discourse, and he seemed to be much pleased with my visits. Thence to Mr. Phillips, and so to the Temple, where met my cozen Roger Pepys and his brother, Dr. John, as my arbitrators against Mr. Cole and Mr. John Bernard for my uncle Thomas, and we two with them by appointment. They began very high in their demands, and my friends, partly being not so well acquainted with the will, and partly, I doubt, not being so good wits as they, for which I blame my choosing of relations (who besides that are equally engaged to stand for them as me), I was much troubled thereat, and taking occasion to deny without my father’s consent to bind myself in a bond of 2000l. to stand to their award, I broke off the business for the present till I hear and consider further, and so thence by coach (my cozen, Thomas Pepys, being in another chamber busy all the while, going along with me) homeward, and I set him down by the way; but, Lord! how he did endeavour to find out a ninepence to clubb with me for the coach, and for want was forced to give me a shilling, and how he still cries “Gad!” and talks of Popery coming in, as all the Fanatiques do, of which I was ashamed. So home, finding my poor wife very busy putting things in order, and so to bed, my mind being very much troubled, and could hardly sleep all night, thinking how things are like to go with us about Brampton, and blaming myself for living so high as I do when for ought I know my father and mother may come to live upon my hands when all is done.

30 Annotations

First Reading

Bradford  •  Link

That Cousin Thomas, "how he still cries 'Gad!'" Does this mean something, or is it a hick exclamation like "By gum!" or has it some connection to the eternal return of Popery? The Glossaries don't specify; an ordinary dictionary merely calls it a euphemism for God, "a mild oath"---perhaps now an old-fashioned or lower-class one?
(Gad was also one of Jacob's sons and ancestor of one of the tribes of Israel, too.)
Gad. Turkey sandwiches for the foreseeable future. (Excuse the Colonial humor.)

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

Sam, couldnaie find truppence or half a groat to pacify a rich Miser and a Presby too. Mon Dieu?

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

"...the stamps of the new money that is now to be made . Here be the samples of English Milled Coinage "Crowns of 1662" [Cnt F]
http://www.romanbritain.freeserve…

Terry F  •  Link

"the King and Duke are come this morning to the Tower to see the Dunkirk money!...[but] We saw none of the money"

L&M note: "Some of the money was now kept for safety at the Receipt of the Mint; the rest was pledged to goldsmiths...."

dirk  •  Link

"the stamps of the new money that is now to be made by Blondeau’s fashion, which are very neat, and like the King"

A personal confirmation like this, by one who has seen both the King in person, and the stamp, is the rare thing which allows us - three centuries later - to be reasonably sure that the portrait on the coin is indeed really accurate.

This may seem relatively unimportant, but think of all the kings, emperors, etc, who in the course of the last 2000 years have had their "portrait" put on a coin - and in most of these cases we have only other images to compare these with, and find out whether the coin stamp is even roughly accurate. And no guarantee that the image we are comparing with is accurate either: it may be idealized, or even a complete fantasy (There is for instance no accurate portrait of someone as important as Charlemagne.)

Terry F  •  Link

The authenticity of a portrait a coin established

Nice point, Dirk; just as the preponderany colonial government in North America has issued a new 5¢ coin with an image of an 18th century President, Thomas Jefferson, that provides him an idealized, bolder ("more manly") nose and forehead than were his in life, according to contemporary portraits and testimony such as this.

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

Sam. expects paintings and portraits to remove all defects, 'Tis why fortunes be spent on cosmetology, nobody likes their visage.
O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori!
Virgil, Eclogae, II, 17
Preety boy, looks 'aint' everythin'.

Terry F  •  Link

Pepys on Cozen Tom the Turner's eccentricities

Before he marks himself with what seems to be a radical Nonconformist's oath, he insists on finding for his share of the carfare what is here called "a ninepence" which prompts L&M to notee says "Some ninepences were current at this time (Irish shillings of James I), but they were rare."

Here are images of the Irish shillings of James I, but they are denominated sixpences http://www.irishcoinage.com/JAMES…

Terry F  •  Link

A running theme today is Pepys's disappointment in his choice of relatives!

Pauline  •  Link

THIS “cozen, Thomas Pepy”
Terry and Phil, I'm not sure that this isn't linked correctly dispite L&M. "The Executor" is more likely to be in another chamber busy than "the Turner". And perhaps more likely at this moment to share a coach with Sam. And to be mentioned by Sam without reference to his business at the Temple or to Thomas as Uncle Thomas's son.

Terry F  •  Link

Pauline, you make a persuasive case; on the other side is the Q.: would “The Executor” behave as we are told this cozen Thomas Pepys does, despite “The Executor's” probably Presbyteriam synpathies, given his otherwise responsible and office-holding résumé?

andy  •  Link

like the King

The Soviet Union was infamous for its hero badges, for example Yuri Gagarin having more or less Slavonic features depending on the grateful audience, and of course the famous "Baby Lenin" badge.

Pedro  •  Link

"A running theme today is Pepys’s disappointment in his choice of relatives!"

Maktub...God gives us relatives, thank God we can choose our friends!

Terry F  •  Link

"I blame my choosing of relations”! counters Pepys --
who then chooses to get into a coach with another who elicits from him an oath later in the evening in the recounting of it to the Annotators and all the world on the web -- but not those whom God has given him.

Pedro  •  Link

As right as ninepence.

From Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable…

Commendation Ninepence A bent silver ninepence, supposed to be lucky, and commonly used in the seventeenth century as a love-token, the giver or sender using these words, “From my love, to my love.” Sometimes the coin was broken, and each kept a part.

“Like commendation ninepence, crooked,
With `To and from my love,' it looked.”
Butler: Hudibras, i. 1.

“Filbert: As this divides, thus are we torn in twain.
Kitty: And as this meets, thus may we meet again.”
Gay: What d'ye Call It?

Terry F  •  Link

Pauline, Phil -- methinks there are arguments pro et con the link being fine as it is and L&M in error:
Pro: Perhaps the cozen Thomas Pepys with the responsible and office-holding résumé behaves otherwise in public; being now in private with a kinsman he becomes himself;
Con: The cozen Thomas Pepys called “The Executor” and said to be "wealthy" digs fervently for a ninepence like a throwback or a skinflint, for want of which was forced to cough up a shilling.
(Of course, perhaps he's wealthy because he is a skinflint -- there have been those, or so I'm told.)

Pauline  •  Link

arguments pro et con
Pro: The "Gad" and "Popery" and "Fanatiques" in Sam's reaction fit more the older man who lived the interregnum. Quite a touch of an old player unadjusted to the new reality.

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

Unfortunenately many of those that have acquired wealth thru clipping coins and other devious practices, buying low selling high, have moths in with the coins. The adage "look after the pennies, the quids be ok.
Many fail this Test. 'tis why businesses love Credit cards and time payments, easier to remove monies from the poor.
"Pecuniae impere oportet, non servire"
thanks to Syrus Maxims.

money should be Emperor, not to be slave??????

A. Hamilton  •  Link

how he still cries “Gad!” and talks of Popery coming in

More likely the Turner. The Executor b.1611, the Turner apparently 1620, so both lived through the interregnum. Both Londoners. Executor as politician perhaps less likely to adhere to old ways. Turner on other hand quite likely to be hanging around the Temple where he has arbitrators meeting with Sam & Cousin Roger. Sam has written in the past of determination to keep relations between them on an even keel and of his admiration for the Turner's strength of character and speed of action, and here pays him an indirect compliment in saying he has chosen better negotiators than Sam has. The phrase "all the while" suggests that Sam wondered where cousin Tom was during the negotition and spies him immediately afterward. Gist of this entry: he may be shrewd man, but he has his ridiculous side.

Bradford  •  Link

The general assumption by today's annotators falls in with Terry F.'s clever recognition---that "Gad" "seems to be a radical Nonconformist’s oath," thus vieux jeu under the New (or at least the current) Order. Very fine, as one of my junior high school teachers used to say. But as for Pepys's attitude toward his relations, there is a certain insight to be gained by meditating upon that reverse truism, "You can choose your family, but you can't choose your friends."

dirk  •  Link

Dunkirk

From a Letter with political and military information (from a informant in France), sent to the Duke of Ormond

Written from: Paris
Date: 24 November 1662

M. de L'Estrade is at Calais, in order to pay to the English Commissioners the four and a half millions [of livres] in silver ["d'argent blanc"], given for the rendition of Dunkirk; the Commissioners cause the silver to be defaced ["le font coupper"] as soon as received, in order to its conversion into English coin. It is expected that the payment will be completed on 26th inst; the remaining half-million having been paid in England. The English troops are to quit Dunkirk on the 27th.

Source:
Bodleian Library
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…

dirk  •  Link

Dunkirk cont'd

The above letter states that the money should all be paid by the 26th.

Noting Sam's comment about coming "to the Tower to see the Dunkirk money", and the L&M note that “Some of the money was now kept for safety at the Receipt of the Mint; the rest was pledged to goldsmiths….” -- which indicates that the money had already arrived in Britain -- I can only conclude that the letter's date of 24 November must be "new style" (coming from France), i.e. Gregorian calendar, and equivalent to **14 November** according to the British (Julian) calendar.

There's no other way to reconcile both pieces of information. Oh, those calendars!

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"my Lord Sandwich being there, did discourse with us about getting some of this money to pay off the Fleets, and other matters;"

On 13 December the King ordered £20.000 of the Dunkirk money to be used to secure a navy debt raised by Carteret on his own credit, and £30,000 to secure a further loan to the navy from Aldermen Vyner, Maynell and Backwell.
(L&M note)

Bill  •  Link

“the King and Duke are come this morning to the Tower to see the Dunkirk money”

Alderman Backwell brought over the money.
---Wheatley, 1899.

Bill  •  Link

“how he did endeavour to find out a ninepence to clubb with me for the coach, and for want was forced to give me a shilling”

CLUB-LAW, a paying an equal Share of a Reckoning.
---An Universal English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

OED has:

‘club, v. < club n Middle English clubbe < Old Norse klubba . .
. . 8. a. To combine in making up a sum (as the cost or expense of an entertainment, etc.) by a number of individual contributions; to go shares in the cost of anything . .
. . 1662 S. Pepys Diary 24 Nov. (1970) III. 266 How he did endeavour to find out a ninepence to club with me for the coach . . ‘

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the stamps of the new money that is now to be made by Blondeau’s fashion, which are very neat, and like the King"

L&M: For the new coinage of 1662-3, made by the mint engineer Pierre Blondeau, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
The work of making the coins began on 6 February 1663. They were a great improvement on the immediately preceding issue:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Henry Slingsby was Master of the Mint.

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