Saturday 18 August 1666

All the morning at my office; then to the Exchange (with my Lord Bruncker in his coach) at noon, but it was only to avoid Mr. Chr. Pett’s being invited by me to dinner. So home, calling at my little mercer’s in Lumbard Streete, who hath the pretty wench, like the old Queene, and there cheapened some stuffs to hang my roome, that I intend to turn into a closett. So home to dinner, and after dinner comes Creed to discourse with me about several things of Tangier concernments and accounts, among others starts the doubt, which I was formerly aware of, but did wink at it, whether or no Lanyon and his partners be not paid for more than they should be, which he presses, so that it did a little discompose me; but, however, I do think no harm will arise thereby. He gone, I to the office, and there very late, very busy, and so home to supper and to bed.

12 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"cheapened"

Cheapen = to price; to bargain for. (L&M Select Glossary)

cgs  •  Link

cheap joined awful and dread for flipping its meaning.
some cheap awful and dreaded meanings.
cheap, n
[A common Teut. n.: OE. céap ‘barter, buying and selling, market, price, merchandise, stock, cattle’, = OFris. kâp, OS. kôp (MDu. coop, Du. koop, LG. koop),
OHG. chouf, MHG. kouf trade, buying and selling, merchandise, gain, payment (Ger. kauf purchase):{em}WGer. *kaup:{em}OTeut. *kaupo-z masc.; cf.
ON. kaup bargain, pay, wages (SW. köp, Da. kjöb bargain, purchase, price), neut.:{em}*kaupom.

The original sense was ‘bargaining, barter, exchange of commodities’, whence, after the use of money, ‘buying and selling’, ‘buying or selling’, in later times often restricted to ‘buying, purchase’ alone. Beside it, the Teut. langs. have the derivative verbs, *kaupjan (OHG. chouffen, OE. cíepan), and *kaupôjan (Goth. kaupon, OHG. choufôn, OE. céapian) to barter, buy and sell, etc. (see CHEAP v.), and OHG. an agent-n. choufo, WGer. type *kaupo, -on, trader, merchant. OE. is the only language in which the n. has the sense ‘cattle’, so that there is no ground for taking that as the original sense; it was either,
like the word CATTLE itself, a special application of the general sense ‘merchandise, stock’, or perhaps connected with the use of cattle as a medium of exchange or measure of value; cf. FEE.
The coincidence of the stem kaup-, and esp. the identity of the WGer. agent-n. *kaupo, -on ‘trader, merchant, dealer’, with L. caupo, -{omac}n-em ‘petty tradesman, huckster, tavern keeper’, has suggested that the Teut. word and its family are of Latin origin. But there are serious difficulties.
Some, taking the Goth. vb. kaupatjan ‘to cuff’ as a deriv. of the same root, suggest for kaup- the original sense of ‘stroke, striking’: compare the notion of ‘striking’ a bargain, ‘striking hands’ over a bargain, Ger. handschlag.]

I. As a simple n.

1. A bargain about the bartering or exchanging of one commodity for another, or of giving money or the like for any commodity; bargaining, trade, buying and selling.
Beowulf 482

2. The place of buying and selling; market. (Hence b. in place-names, as Cheapside, Eastcheap.) 1300

3. That which is given in exchange for a commodity; price; value. 1025

4. Exchangeable commodities, merchandise, goods, chattels, esp. (live) cattle.
897

II. In contextual uses.

5. Bargain, purchase; qualified from the buyer's point of view as good, great, etc., as in the modern ‘a good bargain’, ‘a great bargain’, ‘a bargain’, etc. Cf. F. faire bon marché.
1340

b. niggard cheap: close thrift, economy, niggardliness.
1463

6. State of the market, qualified from the buyer's point of view as good, dear, etc. good cheap: a state of the market good for the purchaser; low prices, abundance of commodities, plenty, cheapness. So dear cheap: a dear market, high prices, dearth, scarcity.
c1325

b. transf. Plenty, abundance.
c1325

8. quasi-adj. good cheap was used for: That is a good bargain, that can be purchased on advantageous terms; low-priced, cheap. Compared better cheap, best cheap. So (rarely) great cheap.
(It is not clear whether the notion was ‘at a good market’, or ‘as a good bargain’.)
c1375

b. transf. and fig. That costs little (trouble, etc.), easily obtained; plentiful, abundant; of small value, ‘cheap’.
[1340

9. quasi-adv. good cheap was also used (cf. to or at good cheap in 5) for: On advantageous terms, at a low cost, cheaply. (Compared as in 8.)
1420

b. transf. and fig. On good terms, with little effort; cheaply, easily.
1567-9

10. Comb. cheap-house, a house of merchandise. [Cf. OE. céapstow market-place.]
1606

[A comparatively recent shortening of ‘good cheap’, in its adjectival and adverbial uses; see prec., senses 8 and 9; not found before 16th c.]

A. adj.

1. a. That may be bought at small cost; bearing a relatively low price; inexpensive. Opposed to dear. Phr. cheap and nasty: of low price and bad quality; inexpensive but with the disadvantage of being unsuitable to one's purposes; hence cheap-and-nastiness.
1509

b. transf. (Applied to the price itself, the place where a commodity is sold, etc.) cheap fare: a fare at a lower rate than the ordinary fare; also cheap rate; also attrib.
1598
B. JONSON Ev. Man in Hum. I. i. (R.) He sells his reputation, at cheape market.
1656 H. PHILIPPS Purch. Patt. (1676) 4 The price of money falls cheaper, and the price of Land riseth dearer

c. Applied to money obtainable at a low rate of interest.
1861 Economist 23 Mar. 309/2 Are we to look for cheap money soon, for progressive reductions in the rate of interest?

2. Bearing a low price in proportion to its intrinsic value; of good value in proportion to its price; well worth the price.
1611 DEKKER Roaring Girl I. i. Wks. 1873 III. 141 Good things are most cheape, when th' are most deere. a1632 G. HERBERT Jacula Prudentum (1836) 141 Ill ware is never cheap.

3. fig. Costing little labour, trouble, effort, etc.; easily obtained.
1603 SHAKES. Meas. for M. II. iv. 105 Twer the cheaper way. Better it were a brother dide at once, Then that a sister, by redeeming him, Should die for euer

4. a. Involving little trouble and hence of little worth; worthless, paltry.
1571
a1674 CLARENDON Surv. Leviath. 22 The cheap laughter of all illiterate men.
1738 JOHNSON London 36 The cheap reward of empty praise.

5. a. Accounted of small value, made little of, lightly esteemed; esp. brought into contempt through being made too familiar.
1596 SHAKES. 1 Hen. IV, III. ii. 41 Had I so lauish of my presence beene..So stale and cheape to vulgar Company.

a1626 BACON (J.) He that is too much in any thing, so that he giveth another occasion of society, maketh himself cheap.

1668-9 PEPYS Diary 15 Jan., Making the king cheap and ridiculous.

b. In poor health; out of sorts. (Hence cheapness.) slang.
1891

5. a. Accounted of small value, made little of, lightly esteemed; esp. brought into contempt through being made too familiar.
1596 SHAKES. 1 Hen. IV,

. 1668-9 PEPYS Diary 15 Jan., Making the king cheap and ridiculous.
b. to hold cheap: to hold of small account, think little of, despise.
1590 SHAKES. Com. Err. III. i. 21,

cheap, v.

1. orig. (intr.) To barter, buy and sell; to trade, deal, bargain.
c1000

Terry Foreman  •  Link

So Cheapside is the former site of one of the principal produce markets in London, cheap broadly meaning "market" in medieval English (see below Etymology and usage). Many of the streets feeding into the main thoroughfare are named after the produce that was originally sold in those areas of the market, for example, Honey Lane, Milk Street, Bread Street and Poultry. http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…

andy  •  Link

whether or no Lanyon and his partners be not paid for more than they should be, which he presses, so that it did a little discompose me

A scam that is still said to happen in public procuerement (I was told in Belarus last week it operates on European Union contracts). The difference in price being paid by the successful company in cash to the public official making the purchasing decison.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...after dinner comes Creed to discourse with me about several things of Tangier concernments and accounts, among others starts the doubt, which I was formerly aware of, but did wink at it, whether or no Lanyon and his partners be not paid for more than they should be, which he presses, so that it did a little discompose me; but, however, I do think no harm will arise thereby."

Tell that to the Parliamentary board of inquiry, Sam. So much for 'with profit to the King'...I sense our boy veering dangerously toward the road to Perdition.

"Harm" no doubt referring to one Pepys, not the Nation.

Alec  •  Link

Never mind, Sam, despite all that money squandered in Tangiers, those £340,000 for the mole which you're going to live to see blown-up, it's not going to be a scratch on Darian.

Michael Robinson  •  Link

"... after dinner comes Creed to discourse with me about several things of Tangier concernments and accounts, among others starts the doubt, which I was formerly aware of, but did wink at it, whether or no Lanyon and his partners be not paid for more than they should be, which he presses, so that it did a little discompose me; ..."

The back story ...

"Thence to White Hall to the Tangier Committee, and there, above my expectation, got the business of our contract for the victualling carried for my people, viz., Alsopp, Lanyon, and Yeabsly; and by their promise I do thereby get 300l. per annum to myself, which do overjoy me; and the matter is left to me to draw up. Mr. Lewes was in the gallery and is mightily amazed at it, and I believe Mr. Gauden will make some stir about it,..."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

The same contract and related accounts had been the source of a 'scare' in May ... http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… and to the end of the month.

Mary  •  Link

Thank you, MR.

It's so easy to lose track of one (or more) of the irons that Sam has in the fire at any given time, and this drawing-of-the-threads-together is very helpful.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...got the business of our contract for the victualling carried for my people, viz., Alsopp, Lanyon, and Yeabsly; and by their promise I do thereby get 300l. per annum to myself, which do overjoy me; and the matter is left to me to draw up. Mr. Lewes was in the gallery and is mightily amazed at it, and I believe Mr. Gauden will make some stir about it...”

Playing with fire, Sam...

"So Mr. Lewes, Mr. Gauden...Parliament has a few questions about your dealings with Mr. Pepys. Naturally some degree of immunity would be offered."

Hmmn...

"Whatdaya think, Den?...Can we help the man? After all, buddy-boy hasn't exactly been playing ball these days."

"Yeah. What's buddy-boy done for us lately?"

Second Reading

Matt Newton  •  Link

Thanks for the picture of the mole. Do you think that the coast is on the left?
And open water at the bottom of the picture?

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Sadly most of the links in our Encyclopedia are now dead. However, the Royal Collection is on line, and Wenceslaus Hollar made some details pictures of Tangier before they blew up the mole. I don't think the Royal Collection will go away soon:

https://www.rct.uk/search/site/Ta…

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