Friday 3 November 1665

Was called up about four o’clock and in the darke by lanthorne took boat and to the Ketch and set sayle, sleeping a little in the Cabbin till day and then up and fell to reading of Mr. Evelyn’s book about Paynting,1 which is a very pretty book. Carrying good victuals and Tom with me I to breakfast about 9 o’clock, and then to read again and come to the Fleete about twelve, where I found my Lord (the Prince being gone in) on board the Royall James, Sir Thomas Allen commander, and with my Lord an houre alone discoursing what was my chief and only errand about what was adviseable for his Lordship to do in this state of things, himself being under the Duke of Yorke’s and Mr. Coventry’s envy, and a great many more and likely never to do anything honourably but he shall be envied and the honour taken as much as can be from it. His absence lessens his interest at Court, and what is worst we never able to set out a fleete fit for him to command, or, if out, to keepe them out or fit them to do any great thing, or if that were so yet nobody at home minds him or his condition when he is abroad, and lastly the whole affairs of state looking as if they would all on a sudden break in pieces, and then what a sad thing it would be for him to be out of the way. My Lord did concur in every thing and thanked me infinitely for my visit and counsel, telling me that in every thing he concurs, but puts a query, what if the King will not think himself safe, if any man should go but him. How he should go off then? To that I had no answer ready, but the making the King see that he may be of as good use to him here while another goes forth. But for that I am not able to say much. We after this talked of some other little things and so to dinner, where my Lord infinitely kind to me, and after dinner I rose and left him with some Commanders at the table taking tobacco and I took the Bezan back with me, and with a brave gale and tide reached up that night to the Hope, taking great pleasure in learning the seamen’s manner of singing when they sound the depths, and then to supper and to sleep, which I did most excellently all night, it being a horrible foule night for wind and raine.

17 Annotations

First Reading

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Hmmn...Wonder how the boss (York) and Coventry would take Sam's little excursion. Though I suppose he had a reasonably legit cover story about checking the condition of the fleet ready. Kind thing to do for Sandwich's sake, really.

***
Glad to hear our lad avoided the horrors of demon tobacco for the moment.

Maurie Beck  •  Link

I took the Bezan back with me, and with a brave gale and tide reached up that night to the Hope, taking great pleasure in learning the seamen’s manner of singing when they sound the depths, and then to supper and to sleep, which I did most excellently all night, it being a horrible foule night for wind and raine.

What a gem.

Carl in Boston  •  Link

what if the King will not think himself safe, if any man should go but him. How he should go off then? To that I had no answer ready, but the making the King see that he may be of as good use to him here while another goes forth. But for that I am not able to say much
Interesting point, and Sam is at a stand. What does the King think about all this, paying no attention to the courtiers yipping and snarling at Lord Sandwich's ankles. I suppose the King thinks Sandwich is the man for the job, because there he stands commanding the fleet by order of the King. As to the courtiers badmouthing Sandwich at every turn, I suppose the King keeps his own counsel, as he has no money to do much of anything. I think the economy was so ruined by Cromwell that all the King could do was wait twenty years and hope the economy would heal itself, given a severe leaving alone.

Michael L  •  Link

Question for Carl in Boston: How had Cromwell ruined the economy?

Martin  •  Link

Sam's interest in the sounding song (last sentence) was mentioned in Robert Louis Stevenson's essay about the diary among evidences of his wide-ranging interests: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mo….

I've tried in vain to find any example of a sounding-song. So instead, here's a passage from Mark Twain's "Life on the the Mississippi" describing in detail the process of sending a yawl ahead of the steamboat to "sound the depths" in order to help the pilot guide the ship. Different river, different century, but Pepys probably was watching a similar procedure: http://www.classicreader.com/book…

Robert Gertz  •  Link

I think a fair share of blame must fall on James I and especially Charles I and their Parliaments' perpetual underfunding of government in struggles for control with both. (Those Indigo Jones' masques didn't come cheap.) Oliver inherited their crippling debts as well as the Civil War debts and the cost of rebuilding and expanding the navy but budgetwise himself was noted for generally toeing the line on personal extravagance. (Not to mention doing well in seizing enemy property.)

As for Charlie Jr., well...At the very least a chip off the old block.

Michael Robinosn  •  Link

" ... fell to reading of Mr. Evelyn’s book about Paynting ..."

Rather than the 'Sculptura,' a text exclusively about copper engraving and printmaking (and which L&M judge from their being a single shelf mark written in the Pepys copy, PL 868, to have been a much later acquisition of about the time of SP's final library re-organization) L&M suggest an unidentified book lent by Evelyn, possibly following on from their discussion on September 27th.:

"Back again the same way and had most excellent discourse of Mr. Evelyn touching all manner of learning; wherein I find him a very fine gentleman, and particularly of paynting, in which he tells me the beautifull Mrs. Middleton is rare, and his own wife do brave things."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

The universe of possible candidates is quite small and, having the advantage over L&M of being able to conduct various collection and other electronic database searches, the only plausible candidate in either French or English, would appear to be:

Sanderson, William, Sir, 1586?-1676.
Graphice. The use of the pen and pensil. Or, the most excellent art of painting: in two parts. By William Sanderson, Esq;
London : printed for Robert Crofts, at the signe of the Crown in Chancery-Lane, under Serjeant’s Inne, 1658.
[16], 87, [1] p., [3] plates : port. ; 2⁰. Signatures: [A]² a-c² B-Z². Wing (2nd ed.), S648

The work has the contemporary varient title 'Most excellent art of painting: in two parts.' However, though a short text the volume is physically large, a folio, and all the other identifiable volumes SP has taken traveling in the past were of pocket size.

language hat  •  Link

"I think the economy was so ruined by Cromwell"

Quite the reverse: one of the reasons Cromwell came to power was that the Stuarts had screwed the economy up so badly, and the reason England was able to successfully fight the Dutch is that Cromwell's army "at last closed the gap that traditionally existed between English troops and their European counterparts" (he actually paid them regularly, for the most part) and "the Commonwealth navy was, if anything, even more advanced for the age... the funds for all this [were] regularly voted by a House of Commons which believed that profit and power went hand in hand." (Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, pp. 62-63.)

Martin  •  Link

"singing when they sound the depths"

It occurs to me that he may actually be talking about "singing out" the soundings, just as Twain describes the various commands sung out over the waters of the Mississippi (in the passage I linked above).

cgs  •  Link

LH: has said nicely, the economy of Stuart spending gave the merchants and Parliament the new gained powers for without the support of the lads of merchant class, King be doomed The Only reason that C.II got his job back was because of the major generals thought they had power but they had no funds [moneys] and needed the merchants to cough up, to give their 'orses Oats, and being so obnoxious got the empty sack of fodder.
It be a question who rules the body politic, mouth , ticker, or the ejector [rump].

Australian Susan  •  Link

The English Army

Since the times of the Wars of the Roses (late 15th century) English rulers had been anxious about having a permanent standing army in case it acted against the ruler. Under Elizabeth, with the threat of Spanish invasion hanging about from the 1570s, there was an attempt to have trained bands, forerunner of militia regiments, but England relied then (and did for hundreds of years) on the strength of the Navy. Cromwell saw the need to have a properly organised land force as well as a good navy and put both on a good footing. He was particularly good at developing cavalry. Re the Navy: there were some who argued that Britain need not have gone to war in France in 1914, but simply relied on the Navy to repel invaders, if that happened after Germany invaded France.

GrahamT  •  Link

Cromwell's New Model Army was indeed the model for a British standing army. This is recognised in the modern name The British Army, (not Royal, though some regiments are) in contrast to the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and Royal Marines.
The trained bands still existed (at least until The Great War) in name, if not in their original form, e.g. The Honourable Artillary Company, The City of London Regiment, the Coldstream Guards (Monck was their first Colonel) etc.

Pedro  •  Link

“LH: has said nicely”

On agreeing with LH, and on checking various sources, perhaps the following may be of interest…

Child’s, in his Army of Charles II, observes that Cromwell built a formidable army which he relied upon for his very existence. Richard Cromwell fell because he lost its favour. At the Restoration the Army cost £55,000 per month and swallowed up the King’s allowance. The disbandment went reasonably well with little disturbance by the soldiers, and as Pepys had observed, the soldiers returned to their trades.

But the situation with the Navy was somewhat different, and may explain why there was a dislike of the Army by the sailors. Davies in Gentlemen and Tarpaulins notes that Cromwell had greatly expanded the Navy into a formidable fighting force that became one of the bastions of the Republican State. However the financial situation had been deteriorating since at least 1658. Some crews were owed up to 4 years pay.

Rodger adds, in The Command of the Ocean, that there was frequent trouble with men being “turned over”. In March 1653 Monck had reported that at Chatham men were continually crying for their tickets, had lost their clothes and had no money. He warned against its continuation. Later in October Pett called for a company of horse to help with the unrest. This incident led to unpaid seamen attacking Cromwell in person, and there were ugly incidents at Harwich and Portsmouth.


Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

" Mr. Evelyn’s book about Paynting," -- "This must surely have been Evelyn’s “Sculptura, or the History and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper,” published in 1662. The translation of Freart’s “Idea of the Perfection of Painting demonstrated” was not published until 1668."

Evelyn's Sculptura: With the Unpublished Second Part (Google eBook):
https://books.google.com/books?id…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"what if the King will not think himself safe, if any man should go but him. How he should go off then? "

We've seen this line of thought before and here L&M: The suggestion here appears to be that the King would fear assassination if the heir-presumptive, the Duke of York, were sent away in command of a fleet.

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