Thursday 25 January 1665/66
Up and to the office, at noon home to dinner. So abroad to the Duke of Albemarle and Kate Joyce’s and her husband, with whom I talked a great deale about Pall’s business, and told them what portion I would give her, and they do mightily like of it and will proceed further in speaking with Harman, who hath already been spoke to about it, as from them only, and he is mighty glad of it, but doubts it may be an offence to me, if I should know of it, so thinks that it do come only from Joyce, which I like the better. So I do believe the business will go on, and I desire it were over. I to the office then, where I did much business, and set my people to work against furnishing me to go to Hampton Court, where the King and Duke will be on Sunday next. It is now certain that the King of France hath publickly declared war against us, and God knows how little fit we are for it. At night comes Sir W. Warren, and he and I into the garden, and talked over all our businesses. He gives me good advice not to embarke into trade (as I have had it in my thoughts about Colonell Norwood) so as to be seen to mind it, for it will do me hurte, and draw my mind off from my business and embroile my estate too soon. So to the office business, and I find him as cunning a man in all points as ever I met with in my life and mighty merry we were in the discourse of our owne trickes. So about 10 o’clock at night I home and staid with him there settling my Tangier-Boates business and talking and laughing at the folly of some of our neighbours of this office till two in the morning and so to bed.
13 Annotations
First Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"settling my Tangier-Boates business"
See 4 July 1665: "I did a good piece of work with Sir W. Warren, ending the business of the [lighters], wherein honestly I think I shall get above 100l.." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Australian Susan • Link
"...my estate..."
Is this the first time Sam has used this noun of his household and money? Or is the word being used here more akin to "estate" as in states of persons? Like class.
Terry Foreman • Link
"Kate Joyce’s and her husband, with whom I talked a great deale about Pall’s business, and told them what portion I would give her and they do mightily like of it and will proceed further in speaking with Harman,"
See 14 January: "Pall, whom it is time now I find to think of disposing of while God Almighty hath given me something to give with her, and in my letter to my father I do offer to give her 450l. to make her own 50l. given her by my uncle up 500l.. I do also therein propose Mr. Harman the upholster for a husband for her, to whom I have a great love and did heretofore love his former wife, and a civil man he is and careful in his way, beside, I like his trade and place he lives in, being Cornhill." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
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"Harman...is mighty glad of it, but doubts [ = suspects] it may be an offence to me, if I should know of it, so thinks that it do come only from Joyce, which I like the better."
Australian Susan • Link
Sorry for duplicate post. Am on new computer.
Whilst I am here again - something which has been lurking in my mind. No-one has ever seemed to have ever asked if Tangier was worth it. Money, troops, victuals, ships, engineers, marines are poured into a seemingly insatiable maw. Is anyone going to do the maths on this and speculate if the returns (what returns?) are a good recompense. And when will the beady eyes of commerce latch onto Bombay (Mumbai) - in the long run, a much more profitable gift from Portugal?
Terry Foreman • Link
When Gibraltar was acquired by Britain in 1713, Tangier's theoretical role as a monitor over the entry to the Med was clearly superseded.
cgs • Link
estate, some older meanings
OED
1. a. State or condition in general, whether material or moral, bodily or mental. In ME. occas.: Constitution, nature. arch.; now almost exclusively in Biblical phrases.
c1230
...630 EARL DORCHESTER in Ellis Orig. Lett. II. 268. III. 262 The Queene..is in good estate. 1662 Bk. Com. Prayer (Pickering 1844) 56 We pray for the good estate of the Catholick Church. 1676 GREW Anat. Plants, Lect. ii. (1682) 241 There is some kind of Alkaline Salt in Plants even in their natural estate.
b. A special state or condition; a condition of existence. Also in estate = in existence. Obs. exc. in man's, woman's estate = manhood, womanhood, and (arch.) in the (holy) estate of matrimony.
a1225 ..
c. in estate [= Fr. en état (de)]: in a position, able (to do something). Obs. rare.
1651 ..
d. Good or normal condition. in his estate: just as he was. out of estate: ‘out of condition’.
c1400 ...
e. ? State of privilege or advantage. Obs.
1628 WITHER Brit. Rememb. ii. 119 Knew I not the Christian Man's estate Extended further than to contemplate. 1633 G. HERBERT Temple 54 Mans whole estate Amounts (and richly) to serve thee.
f. An account of the state or condition of anything; a ‘statement’ of particulars. Obs.
1474 ...
2. a. Condition with respect to worldly prosperity, fortune, etc. Cf. 12. arch.
a1300 C...
1662 Bk. Com. Prayer (Pickering 1844) 56 Any ways afflicted or distressed in mind, body, or estate. 1671 tr. Frejus' Voy. Mauritania 7 Made a slave..and detained in that estate till our arrival.
b. ? Means, ability, opportunity. In phrase, after (one's) estate. Obs.
c1380
3. a. Status, standing, position in the world; degree of rank; esp. exalted rank or dignity. Also in phr. man, etc. of estate. arch.
a1225 ...
1611 BIBLE Transl. Pref. 1 If any man conceit, that Princes are priuiledged by their high estate, he is deceiued.
b. A definite position in life; an occupation. Obs. rare. [A usual sense of Fr. état.]
1685 PETTY Will p. xi, Those who have been bred to no calling nor estate.
c. ellipt. = person or persons of estate. Obs. (Cf. similar use of dignity.)
1399 ...
1634 R. H. Salerne Regim. 88 Let them [eels] be drest with Galendine..as great Estates Cookes are wont to doe.
4. a. Outward display of one's condition; grandeur, pomp, STATE. Obs. exc. arch. (poet.)
c1385 CHAUCER L.G.W. 1034 Dido, This frosche lady..Stod in the temple in hire estat ryal.
Robert Gertz • Link
"So about to o’clock at night I home and staid with him there settling my Tangier-Boates business and talking and laughing at the folly of some of our neighbours of this office till two in the morning and so to bed."
Haw-haw...
"Sir?"
"Yes, boy?"
"I was awoken last night by you and Sir Will, talking."
"No excuse of lackadaisiness, boy. I expect you to look sharp today."
"Aye, sir. But...I was hearing some things you were saying about some of the things you and Sir Will was up to in your business when you and he were laughing over it and...Sir? Anything wrong, sir?"
Pats coughing Sam...
"No, no...Tis a sin to eavesdrop, boy. You might well warrant another flogging, Thomas."
"Aye, sir. I don't know, sir...You yourself did tell me, sir, to listen always when on business calls with you or in the office, sir. And you wouldn't want to hurt your other thumb, sir..."
"So I did. Well, what of this...?"
"Some as are important men might take it amiss...Some of what I did hear...And wrote down, sir. As per your good example, sir."
"Wrote...?"
"...And sent off to a safe place, sir. So as there would be no trouble ever about it, sir. So long as alls well with me, sir."
So much for that quick message to Creed while he's still in town...
"Now, Tom...Why should there be anything wrong with a fine young healthy lad like you? So long as he keeps his nose out of trouble...And others' business."
"You did say it was family business, sir...And that I was to be considering meself part of the family, sir."
"Yes, indeed...Ah, but we're forgetting my new shipment of wine downstairs..." Opens cellar door...
"And Tom, I want you to know that I feel toward you as I would toward my very own son..."
"But..." Bess from behind cuts in... "If you lose one son, it is possible to get another..."
Argghhhh.....Bang, bang, slam, plop.
"Bess?"
"Heard him scurrying about last night. Little sneak. And it is a partnership, Sam'l."
"Yes...But that was my line..."
"Poor baby."
Paul Chapin • Link
"about to o'clock"
Scanning error for 10 o'clock. We've seen this before.
Paul Chapin • Link
"No-one has ever seemed to have ever asked if Tangier was worth it."
Susan, Terry gave the appropriate answer (Gibraltar superseded). But I can't resist noting that the phenomenon is all too familiar in our own time, when the people at the head of a government develop a fixation on some foreign conquest and spare no blood or treasure to achieve it, even when the cost-benefit calculus marks it as folly.
Michael Robinson • Link
"No-one has ever seemed to have ever asked if Tangier was worth it.”
Spoiler. But they did, later:
"After twenty years there was good reason for closing down the experiment and several of the King's advisers made this point. Charles's early enthusiasm had lapsed, and so he needed little persuasion. Since Tangier had come to him personally, he was expected to pay for it from his existing revenue. Only after the 1680 siege did Parliament offer supply, and this was made conditional on the King's acceptance of the bill to exclude the Duke of York from the throne. Charles refused the gambit, and his own device of assigning Tangier to the Irish budget did not work. By the end of 1682 the decision was made to withdraw. Tangier was offered back to Portugal and to Spain who both declined. So in 1683 Charles ordered a scorched earth evacuation."
SP was appointed to the staff to assign compensation to those whose property was to be destroyed or abandoned and and maintained a Journal throughout his visit.
C. S. Knighton ed. & introd. 'Pepys Later Diaries' Stroud: Sutton 2004. p. 129, introduction; pp. 137-186 Samuel Pepys 'A Journal Toward Tangier Begun Monday July 30th.1683'
Almost twenty years later, Gibraltar was captured during the War of the Spanish Succession by a force of Dutch and British marines on 4 August 1704. British sovereignty was later recognized when Spain ceded Gibraltar under Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pea…
Pedro • Link
“No-one has ever seemed to have ever asked if Tangier was worth it.”
My own humble opinion to the question is that almost all would think it was worth it on the information available at the time.
The strategic value of a base at the entrance/exit to the Med would be widely considered to be of great benefit. Sir Henry Bruce had put forward the idea of Gibraltar to Cromwell in 1625, and Sandwich made drawings there in 1656. At that time Tangier was out of the question as it had belonged to England’s oldest ally, Portugal, since around 1471.
The length of time that Portugal had been in Tangier would suggest its value. The land was fertile; there were good water supplies and it was recognised trading centre. The question of the required mole was well known but not beyond the wit of the English engineer.
Michael sites that Tangier was given to Charles personally and he had to bear the finance, but this was also true for the rest of the Dowry, from which he had to finance the troops for the defence of Portugal.
Some historians argue, with hindsight, that the Portuguese were glad to be rid of the place, but that was not the opinion of the Portuguese people. The Governor, as with Bombay, would not initially surrender it to Sandwich and they removed everything they possibly could when they left.
Queen Regent Luisa kept the inclusion of Tangier from all but her closest advisor for fear of street riots. (Bombay also, but considered to be so far from home to be as valued by the people).
Childs, in his book The Army of Charles II, says that the concept of the capture of Gibraltar in 1705 sprang from the precedent of Tangier.
cgs • Link
Another minor point of Tangier acquisition, was to prevent "terrorising" of England, all those body snatchers that so loved having Cornish men as butlers and helping around the house, such nice cheap labour,along with that popular work co-opting passing merchant ships. It was also "Cheaper" than Parliament paying out if premiums from the coffers of Bankers to get the labor back in England
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"It is now certain that the King of France hath publickly declared war against us"
L&M: On 16/26 January.
In the winter of 1666 the Dutch created a strong anti-English alliance. On 26 January, Louis declared war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sec…