Monday 2 October 1665

We having sailed all night (and I do wonder how they in the dark could find the way) we got by morning to Gillingham, and thence all walked to Chatham; and there with Commissioner Pett viewed the Yard; and among other things, a teame of four horses come close by us, he being with me, drawing a piece of timber that I am confident one man could easily have carried upon his back. I made the horses be taken away, and a man or two to take the timber away with their hands. This the Commissioner did see, but said nothing, but I think had cause to be ashamed of.

We walked, he and I and Cocke, to the Hill-house, where we find Sir W. Pen in bed and there much talke and much dissembling of kindnesse from him, but he is a false rogue, and I shall not trust him, but my being there did procure his consent to have his silk carried away before the money received, which he would not have done for Cocke I am sure. Thence to Rochester, walked to the Crowne, and while dinner was getting ready, I did there walk to visit the old Castle ruines, which hath been a noble place, and there going up I did upon the stairs overtake three pretty mayds or women and took them up with me, and I did ‘baiser sur mouches et toucher leur mains’ and necks to my great pleasure: but, Lord! to see what a dreadfull thing it is to look down the precipices, for it did fright me mightily, and hinder me of much pleasure which I would have made to myself in the company of these three, if it had not been for that. The place hath been very noble and great and strong in former ages. So to walk up and down the Cathedral, and thence to the Crowne, whither Mr. Fowler, the Mayor of the towne, was come in his gowne, and is a very reverend magistrate. After I had eat a bit, not staying to eat with them, I went away, and so took horses and to Gravesend, and there staid not, but got a boat, the sicknesse being very much in the towne still, and so called on board my Lord Bruncker and Sir John Minnes, on board one of the East Indiamen at Erith, and there do find them full of envious complaints for the pillageing of the ships, but I did pacify them, and discoursed about making money of some of the goods, and do hope to be the better by it honestly. So took leave (Madam Williams being here also with my Lord), and about 8 o’clock got to Woolwich and there supped and mighty pleasant with my wife, who is, for ought I see, all friends with her mayds, and so in great joy and content to bed.

26 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I did 'baiser sur mouches et toucher leur mains' and necks to my great pleasure:"

"I kissed them on their patches [beauty-spots] and touched their hands and necks to my great pleasure:" -- ?? http://www.wordreference.com/fren…

A.. Hamilton  •  Link

"I made the horses be taken away"

and then took away the pretty maids

Alpha Sam at his most objectionable

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"how they in the dark could find the way"
By the stars Sam, I am really disappointed!

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

"I did ‘baiser sur mouches et toucher leur mains’ and necks to my great pleasure”

You're taking a real chance, Sam, given that "the sicknesse [is] very much in the towne still"...

CGS  •  Link

"...there do find them full of envious complaints for the pillageing of the ships..."
AH! those silks and spices , be it they be at the blind [mans] pub.

Jesse  •  Link

"but I think had cause to be ashamed of"

Maybe, maybe not. It's quite possible that the "piece of timber" was the last bit of a larger load, the bulk being dropped elsewhere. Could have been training a new driver or breaking in a new team - who knows? Pepys would come off mostly annoying.

Mary  •  Link

L&M reading of Sam's 'foreign code' is different, though tends to a similar conclusion.

There I did besarlas muchas vezes et tocar leur mains and necks, to my great pleasure.

Mary  •  Link

The cart at Chatham could equally have been going to pick up a heavy load from elsewhere in the yard and was simply dropping off a single piece of different timber on the way. Perhaps Pett did not know enough about the minutiae of this particular piece of work (why should he?) to argue the point.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Or Sam may be well aware of the inefficiencies at Chatham under Pett, Pett, Pett, and Pett, Inc and using an example to make his point with Pett the current. But certainly he may just have been showing off as Mr. Efficiency to little real effect...

***
Three little maids from Rochester are we
Pert as Rochester girls well can be
Filled to the brim with girlish glee
Three little maids on tour

That silly little man there's a source of fun
See nobody's safe, for we care for none
Our joke on him has just begun
Three little maids from tour

Three little maids who, all unwary
Come from Rochester Ladies' Seminary
Freed from its genius tutelary
Three little maids on tour
Three little maids on tour

Our over-eager friend is a bit dum-dum
Girls, he just pinched me in the bum
We then brushed him off is the total sum
We three little maids know fools...
We sharp little maids know fools...

Little sir, take your hand away
Two little maids remain untouched, and they
Won't have to wait very long, we'd say
We three little maids on tour
Three little maids with a fool

Three little maids who, though unwary
Coming from Rochester Ladies' Seminary
Freed themselves from Pepys' "tutelary"
We three little maids, no fools
We three little maids, no fools

language hat  •  Link

Gillingham in Kent is pronounced "Jilling-um." (Other towns called Gillingham elsewhere in England have hard G.)

language hat  •  Link

"There I did besarlas muchas vezes et tocar leur mains"

"There I did kiss them many times and touch their hands": a much more credible reading.

JWB  •  Link

And Charles,somewhere on the island,to Lady C:

"When I sally forth to seek my prey
I help myself in a royal way.
I sink a few more ships, it’s true,
Than a well-bred monarch ought to do;
But many a king on a first-class throne,
If he wants to call his crown his own,
Must manage somehow to get through
More dirty work than ever I do,

For I am a Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King!"

A. Hamilton  •  Link

And we are the chorus of policemen and sisters and cousins etc.

dirk  •  Link

From the Carte Papers, Bodleian Library
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…

Resolves at a Council of War, held at the Buoy of the Nore, on the 2nd of October, 1665 [cf yesterday's annotation from the Carte Papers]

Date: 2 October 1665

Relate to the dispatch of a squadron to Gottenburgh; & to the refitting of ships taken from the Dutch.

CGS  •  Link

"...a teame of four horses come close by us, he being with me, drawing a piece of timber ..."

such a luverly word Draw

drawing.. dragging
My take, no wagon involved .
Dragging a piece of timber with four nags be just gilding the lily or an exercise in team work or just passing the time in the normal government way.
'Twas why we call some horses draught horses.

1. a. gen. The action of the verb DRAW in its various senses: the imparting of motion or impulse in the direction of the actuating force; pulling, dragging, draught, hauling, traction; attraction, extraction, removal, derivation; formal composition (of a document), {dag}translation, etc.

adverb 2. spec. Used to draw vehicles, etc.; draught-.
1551 R
'
to draw

[A Common Teut. strong vb. of 6th ablaut series: OE. dra{asg}an, dró{asg} (dróh), dra{asg}en = OS. dragan, OHG. tragen, ON. draga, Goth. (ga)dragan: only in OE. and ON. with the sense ‘draw, pull’; in the other langs. with that of ‘carry, bear’.
On account of the phonetic development of original g in English, the modern conjugation deviates much from the normal type (as in shake, shook, shaken); the g of the present stem having passed through the labialized guttural spirant ({vvf}w), to (w), dra{asg}-, dra{ygh}-, drau{ygh}-, draw{ygh}-, drawh-, draw-. The same happened in ME. in the pa. t, where dró{asg}, dróh, became dro{ygh}, drou{ygh}, drow{ygh}, drowh, drough, drow; but this was supplanted in 14-15th c. by drew, app. by assimilation to the originally reduplicated verbs of the series blow, blew, blown, and prob. first in the northern dialect, where these verbs retained their original -áw (blaw, blew, blawen; so draw, drew, drawen). (Through the modern pronunciation of ew, after r, as (u{lm}), drew is now pronounced as the historical drough would have been, if it had survived.) In OE. the 2nd and 3rd sing. pres. Ind. had umlaut, dræ{asg}st, dræhst, dræ{asg}{th}. This was probably the origin of the by-form dray- of the present stem: see A. 1 {beta}. (A weak pa. tense and pple. drawed is occasional from 16th c., and freq. in illiterate speech.)]
2. a. To pull (anything) after one; to move (a thing) along by traction. Specifically used of a beast of draught pulling a vehicle, a plough, etc.

Australian Susan  •  Link

RG - Thank you for the lovely G&S pastiche - very apt!

JWB  •  Link

drawing timber

Any timber to be cut or shaped should not be drawn along the ground because the dirt embedded in the piece will cause cutting tools to quickly lose their edge.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Good point, JWB - if people look at the picture I posted, you will see that the timber being dragged is on a sled (and that's how the picture is described on the original site)- presumably to protect it from dirt for the reason JWB mentions. I hadn't realised that was why they were doing it.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Lord! to see what a dreadfull thing it is to look down the precipices"

GUNDULPH'S TOWER

KENT, GUNDULPH'S TOWER, ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL, Hooper Antique Print 1784

An attractive and finely executed copper engraving of Gundulph's Tower, named after Bishop Gundulph, on the north-east side of Rochester Cathedral.

Engraved by Williams , published London 1783 by Samuel Hooper in Francis Grose's "The Antiquities of England and Wales". https://www.lindisfarneprints.com…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Lord! to see what a dreadfull thing it is to look down the precipices"

GUNDULPH'S TOWER - 112 ft. above ground (&M)

KENT, GUNDULPH'S TOWER, ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL, Hooper Antique Print 1784

An attractive and finely executed copper engraving of Gundulph's Tower, named after Bishop Gundulph, on the north-east side of Rochester Cathedral.

Engraved by Williams , published London 1783 by Samuel Hooper in Francis Grose's "The Antiquities of England and Wales". https://www.lindisfarneprints.com…

Louise Hudson  •  Link

“and there going up I did upon the stairs overtake three pretty mayds or women and took them up with me, and I did ‘baiser sur mouches et toucher leur mains’ and necks to my great pleasure”

Too bad there wasn’t a #MeToo movement in Pepys’ time. 17th Century women could certainly have used it.

jimmigee  •  Link

Thank you, S. D. Sarah.

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