Monday 10 December 1666
Up, and at my office all the morning, and several people with me, Sir W. Warren, who I do every day more and more admire for a miracle of cunning and forecast in his business, and then Captain Cocke, with whom I walked in the garden, and he tells me how angry the Court is at the late Proviso brought in by the House. How still my Lord Chancellor is, not daring to do or say any thing to displease the Parliament; that the Parliament is in a very ill humour, and grows every day more and more so; and that the unskilfulness of the Court, and their difference among one another, is the occasion of all not agreeing in what they would have, and so they give leisure and occasion to the other part to run away with what the Court would not have.
Then comes Mr. Gawden, and he and I in my chamber discoursing about his business, and to pay him some Tangier orders which he delayed to receive till I had money instead of tallies, but do promise me consideration for my victualling business for this year, and also as Treasurer for Tangier, which I am glad of, but would have been gladder to have just now received it. He gone, I alone to dinner at home, my wife and her people being gone down the river to-day for pleasure, though a cold day and dark night to come up.
In the afternoon I to the Excise Office to enter my tallies, which I did, and come presently back again, and then to the office and did much business, and then home to supper, my wife and people being come well and hungry home from Erith. Then I to begin the setting of a Base to “It is Decreed,” and so to bed.
8 Annotations
First Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"how angry the Court is at the late Proviso brought in by the House."
"It is a Proviso to the Poll Bill, that there shall be a Committee of nine persons that shall have the inspection upon oath, and power of giving others, of all the accounts of the money given and spent for this warr." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
See 7 December H of Commons -- Poll Bill
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…
Carl in Boston • Link
Then I to begin the setting of a Base to “It is Decreed,”
You can do it all with just a soprano and a bass voice. Middle voices alto and tenor are nice, but it's usually the bass against the rest of the world. Listen to your Christmas Carols, and if you're lucky, you'll hear someone ripping off a bass part. Merry Christmas, and God Bless Us Every One.
Robert Gertz • Link
"...do promise me consideration for my victualling business for this year, and also as Treasurer for Tangier, which I am glad of, but would have been gladder to have just now received it."
"You understand, sir, that this is merely a downpayment, as it were."
"I know you'll give me millions later."
CGS • Link
HoC
Members loyalty tested, Sacrament anyone
Supply bill passed by committee, next step, the whole House,
need to raise 1 ,800,000 libra or 1.0 l per familie or 4 bob a head or 480 million lbs of cheese.
Modern gold at 695 l per oz vs 1.1 l /oz then
A mere 600 + million into to-day's money
Foreign cattle bill unsettled, climate not healthy.
Mary • Link
Warren's 'forecast'.
Foresight, skilled anticipation, even prudence.
Robert Gertz • Link
Always nice to have the equivalent of Warren Buffett or Rupert Murdoch as your good buddy. But clearly Warren hangs around the naval office all morning for good and profitable reason. I imagine though that the office is packed all day with England's different versions of Warren and Gawden and of course the Houblons, all clamoring for Sam's ear.
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"Then comes Mr. Gawden, and he and I in my chamber discoursing about his business"
L&M: Cf. Gawden to Pepys, 3 December (summary in NWB, p. 103), complaining of the impressment of seamen from his victualling ships.
Gerald Berg • Link
Base vs. Bass?