Friday 18 January 1666/67

Up, and most of the morning finishing my entry of my journall during the late fire out of loose papers into this book, which did please me mightily when done, I, writing till my eyes were almost blind therewith to make an end of it. Then all the rest of the morning, and, after a mouthful of dinner, all the afternoon in my closet till night, sorting all my papers, which have lain unsorted for all the time we were at Greenwich during the plague, which did please me also, I drawing on to put my office into a good posture, though much is behind.

This morning come Captain. Cocke to me, and tells me that the King comes to the House this day to pass the poll Bill and the Irish Bill; he tells me too that, though the Faction is very froward in the House, yet all will end well there. But he says that one had got a Bill ready to present in the House against Sir W. Coventry, for selling of places, and says he is certain of it, and how he was withheld from doing it. He says, that the Vice-chamberlaine is now one of the greatest men in England again, and was he that did prevail with the King to let the Irish Bill go with the word “Nuisance.” He told me, that Sir G. Carteret’s declaration of giving double to any man that will prove that any of his people have demanded or taken any thing for forwarding the payment of the wages of any man (of which he sent us a copy yesterday, which we approved of) is set up, among other places, upon the House of Lords’ door. I do not know how wisely this is done.

This morning, also, there come to the office a letter from the Duke of York, commanding our payment of no wages to any of the muster-masters of the fleete the last year, but only two, my brother Balty, taking notice that he had taken pains therein, and one Ward, who, though he had not taken so much as the other, yet had done more than the rest. This I was exceeding glad of for my own sake and his. At night I, by appointment, home, where W. Batelier and his sister Mary, and the two Mercers, to play at cards and sup, and did cut our great cake lately given us by Russell: a very good one. Here very merry late.

Sir W. Pen told me this night how the King did make them a very sharp speech in the House of Lords to-day, saying that he did expect to have had more Bills;1 that he purposes to prorogue them on Monday come se’nnight; that whereas they have unjustly conceived some jealousys of his making a peace, he declares he knows of no such thing or treaty: and so left them. But with so little effect, that as soon as he come into the House, Sir W. Coventry moved, that now the King hath declared his intention of proroguing them, it would be loss of time to go on with the thing they were upon, when they were called to the King, which was the calling over the defaults of Members appearing in the House; for that, before any person could now come or be brought to town, the House would be up. Yet the Faction did desire to delay time, and contend so as to come to a division of the House; where, however, it was carried, by a few voices, that the debate should be laid by. But this shews that they are not pleased, or that they have not any awe over them from the King’s displeasure.

The company being gone, to bed.

26 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the Faction"

"The Latin word factio denoted originally either of the chariot teams that were organized professionally by private companies in ancient Rome. These teams were not unlike gladiator schools, but the lethal nature of that entertainment meant few performers lasted long enough to build up similar crowd loyalty to the team, while the fighters rarely actually teamed up, but rather fought duels or beasts. In Byzantine Constantinople, two such chariot factions, blue and green, repeatedly made or broke the claims of candidates to the imperial throne.

"Occasionally, the term faction is used as a synonym for political party, but "with opprobrious sense, conveying the imputation of selfish or mischievous ends or turbulent or unscrupulous methods", according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In his Dictionary, Samuel Johnson (a Tory) dismissively defined Whig as "the name of a faction". Similarly, in the tenth instalment of the Federalist Papers, James Madison defines a faction as "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." In plain English this is a group that pursues self interest at the expense of the common good."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poli…

_____

Default (law)

In law, a default is the failure to do something required by law or to appear at a required time in legal proceedings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defa…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Sir W. Pen told me this night how the King did make them a very sharp speech in the House of Lords to-day,"

"King's Speech.

"My Lords and Gentlemen,

"I have now passed your Bills; and I was in good Hope to have had other Bills ready to pass too. I cannot forget, that within few Days after your coming together in September, both Houses presented Me with their Vote and Declaration, that they would give Me a Supply proportionable to My Occasions; and the Confidence of this made Me anticipate that small Part of My Revenue which was unanticipated for the Payment of the Seamen: And My Credit hath gone farther than I had Reason to think it would; but 'tis now at an End.

"This is the First Day I have heard of any Money towards a Supply, being the 18th of January; and what this will amount to, GOD knows; and what Time I have to make such Preparations as are necessary to meet Three such Enemies as I have, you can well enough judge: And I must tell you, what Discourses soever are abroad, I am not in any Treaty; but, by the Grace of GOD, I will not give over Myself and You, but will do what is in My Power for the Defence of Myself and you. 'Tis high Time for you to make good your Promise; and 'tis high Time for you to be in the Country, as well for the raising of Money, as that the Lords Lieutenants and Deputy Lieutenants may watch those seditious Spirits which are at Work to disturb the Public Peace; and therefore I am resolved to put an End to this Session on Monday next come Sevennight, before which Time, I pray, let all Things be made ready that I am to dispatch. I am not willing to complain you have dealt unkindly with Me in a Bill I have now passed, in which you have manifested a greater Distrust of Me than I have deserved. I do not pretend to be without Infirmities: But I have never broken My Word with you; and, if I do not flatter Myself, the Nation never had less Cause to complain of Grievances, or the least Injustice or Oppression, than it hath had in these Seven Years it hath pleased God to restore Me to you. I would be used accordingly."

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

L&M say the King was angry at being forced to accept the Irish Cattle Bill and only did so to get his Poll Bill.

cape henry  •  Link

"...writing till my eyes were almost blind..." Reading this diary in the leisurely manner that we do, each of us sitting comfortably at a computer somewhere in the vast world - though some of us are not leisurely about the scholarship brought to the endeavor, such as TF's amazing contributions, to give a single example - and reading it day by passing day as we do, have little actual impression of the massive amount of work that certainly went into producing the document. For us they are words on a screen. This entry serves to remind us that Pepys has carried his task this far under daily circumstances most of us would not care to contemplate for ourselves, and that his powers of observation and recording were unique. There is much to deplore about Mr. Pepys, surely, but the details in this entry are in many ways the work in miniature.

JWB  •  Link

Irish Bill, or cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It will be Irish corned beef, from around Cork especially, that will feed the empire. What would Wellington have done without it?

CGS  •  Link

Banned goods bring better profits.

CGS  •  Link

"...he says that one had got a Bill ready to present in the House against Sir W. Coventry, for selling of places, and says he is certain of it, and how he was withheld from doing it..."

Still goes on but with higher moral tone called finders fee, as done by head hunter agencies, always need help with the access to fast rack positions.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"And I must tell you, what Discourses soever are abroad, I am not in any Treaty;"

Strictly-speaking true, as L&M note, and that "soundings had been made with Holland and France over the past four months."
However, in fact some intelligence intercepts as early as 26 August exposed some Dutch intending peace. 25 September 1666 "A memorial for peace has been delivered to the King, by the Envoy of Sweden."
That from but one calendar in the Bodleian: http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…
Surely there were other feelers prior to that both written and oral "because ‘littera scripta manet’."

Australian Susan  •  Link

"...Then all the rest of the morning, and, after a mouthful of dinner, all the afternoon in my closet till night, sorting all my papers, which have lain unsorted for all the time we were at Greenwich during the plague, which did please me also, I drawing on to put my office into a good posture, though much is behind. ..."

As someone who finally gave up on the Filing Elf ever coming and did 3 months' worth of filing, I can sympathise with Sam. but I did wonder, *how* does he "sort" his papers: I have filing cabinets and folders and labels. Would Sam have had pigeon holes, chests, shelves, boxes? Do we know anything about office furniture and storage at that time? We know he had just made a catalogue of his books, but how would he have known where things were with his personal papers? Or the Navy Office papers, indeed (although he had clerks to sort/box/file/shelve all those).

Thank you to TF for wonderful background work. Another pair of factions came to my mind: Guelphs and Ghibellines from Italy. They supported the Pope and Holy Roman emperor respectively in central and northern Italy from the 12th to the 16th century. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guel…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Susan, "Faction" has special historical meaning for my country. "[T]he question of how to guard against "factions," or groups of citizens, with interests contrary to the rights of others or the interests of the whole community" was addressed in "Federalist No. 10, an essay by James Madison and the tenth of the Federalist Papers, a series arguing for the ratification of the United States Constitution. It was published on November 22, 1787, under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. The essay is the most famous of the Federalist Papers, along with Federalist No. 51, also by James Madison, and is among the most highly regarded of all American political writings." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fede…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Recall that Pepys had written on 2 January: "I find the Court full of great apprehensions of the French, who have certainly shipped landsmen, great numbers, at Brest; and most of our people here guess his design for Ireland." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Ormond to Orrery
Written from: Dublin
Date: 18 January 1667

... It may now be concluded that the French were not really in that state of readiness to make an invasion which was reported, just a month ago, by the Skipper who came from Brest ...

... It is possible, perhaps probable, that an enemy might land as easily in Connaught as in Munster. In such a case, the inconveniences of a winter march would be redoubled upon such [troops] as should first be drawn into Munster, & thence into Connaught ...

The writer has not been enough befriended [in England] to receive any warning of a purpose to fall upon Lord Orrery's best friend there [Clarendon] and faithful servant here. Nor can he divine how either of them ... fell under displeasure. He hopes that support of the King's Charter to the Canary Company will not be imputed [to Clarendon] as a crime, although the writer himself does not value it as a virtue ...
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Worrisome I should think that the King should be having trouble with Lords rather than just Commons.

Unfortunately neither Madison nor Washington, in his warnings against the development of factions and political parties, could prevent such a development in the US, though the two party system has generally kept it canalized, for good and ill. By the time of Justinian's reign in Byzantium the Blues and Greens had become fairly well established social organizations, performing a number of what we might call "social services" and emperors courted their favor. Justinian nearly lost his throne when the two groups united against him during the Nika revolt. Interestingly there had been a "Red" and "White" faction in earlier times but these had merged with the other two to form a "two-faction system".

Carl in Boston  •  Link

Noble thoughts this day. It was very helpful to me to read the King's speech. Many present day royal speeches run along the same tracks. Lots of American political speeches mirror the Gettysburg Address in their shape and points. It was also news to me to read about factions. I have read The Federalist Papers several times, and know the section about factions. This about Roman factions was quite interesting. Good scholarship.

JWB  •  Link

Well factious Little Jimmy, allied w/ Jefferson was responsible for creation of 1st US political party; not to mention turning my family from a-factional Quakers to fighting Presbyterians and killing three-2 attacking scalp buyers in Canada & one from disease associating w/ those dirty Kantucks(no offense TF) setting up Fort Amanda.

language hat  •  Link

"Unfortunately neither Madison nor Washington, in his warnings against the development of factions and political parties, could prevent such a development in the US"

This is not unfortunate at all; the Washingtonian attitude, that everyone should stand behind the government because it knew what was best for everyone, is the basic pillar of tyranny. It is lucky for the United States that Washington himself was genuinely opposed to both tyranny and its trappings (Adams would have had him called Your Highness), but the whole idea is undemocratic and I am surprised anyone today would defend it. "Factions" is just a dirty word for political disagreements, which are a vital necessity.

Don McCahill  •  Link

> I did wonder, *how* does he “sort” his papers: I have filing cabinets and folders and labels. Would Sam have had pigeon holes, chests, shelves, boxes?

Susan. As one who does not have your organizational skills and tools, I suggest Sam may have used my method. The pile. Works best when kept in roughly chronological order, and gets weeded out about twice a year, with huge gobs of stuff being thrown out as time proves the saving of a sheet unnecessary.

But it is cool that Sam mentions his notes here and elsewhere in the diary. Otherwise we would have been wondering how he could invest an hour or so to write those long fire entries when life must have been so chaotic.

Bradford  •  Link

The History of Office Equipment: pigeonholes date far back, but when did filing cabinets arise? Knowing Pepys's preference for order and rigor, at least in business, one wonders---especially if one belongs to the tribe which yearns toward the tidiness of A. Susan, and even purchases filing drawers and self-assembly bookshelves toward that goal, but winds up, like Don McC., with Stacks of Stuff.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

I was speaking more from their pov, LH. I did say for good and evil...Some of the negatives of faction Madison and Washington feared did develop; much good came from the friction and opportunities for debate from the formal divisions of party. And indeed even the machine politics of the nineteenth century parties often worked better for the average and poor citizen than those pure and perfect systems dreamed of by various would-be and real reformers from James Madison, through Henry Adams, to Wilson and the younger FDR, and on.

As for JA, staunch patriot and big mouth, he's been falsely accused over the years of favoring aristocracy, even tyranny. He did fear mob rule but his faith in the people was as great as Jefferson's. He thought titles would lend credence to the position of President, particularly in the eyes of Europe. It was not his first blunder. Jefferson on the other hand often blundered equally badly but managed to do so with style...And elegant concealment.

Though John Adams was more learned in politics and law, possibly more intelligent, and I think more pure-hearted in his ambitions, I often see him as a cousin to our Sam...They share much in their bustling love of and joy in everyday life and the study of the new, their essential tolerance of differing points of view and different people, their intolerance at times, their determination to do good and pleasure in their work, their occasional flights into absurdity. Perhaps the greatest and saving difference for John is his selfless dedication to duty and country (and we may hope, Abigail)...Perhaps to be fair to Sam, if circumstances had required or allowed, he might have shown similar selflessness.

Glyn  •  Link

"Up, and most of the morning finishing my entry of my journall during the late fire out of loose papers into this book, ... I, writing till my eyes were almost blind therewith to make an end of it."

Thanks, Sam.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Peace feelers

Peace feelers between and among England, the States-General of the United Provinces and France will continue sub rosa into 1667. Search for "peace" here. http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s… I will post but a few of the hits.

Ireland and the Bill remain an issue

These are the papers of Ormond, so of course the same link will keep feelings there alive. Give a read! From time to time an entry will prove irresistible to post!

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"Peace feelers between and among England, the States-General of the United Provinces and France will continue sub rosa into 1667"

Ah, so much for that easy win Charlie and co dreamed of way back when...Sam recording that merchants' thinking that a nice little war would secure global trade for Haliburton...er, England. And one could always sputter about weapons of mass destr...Whoops, wrong unsuccessful little war.

***

Heaven...

"What do you mean they were all Dutch and French agents and you had to follow orders of the King then?"

"Peace feelers, Bess...As that annotator says."

"Knipp, Martin, Bagwell...Etc? Agents?"

"Mercer was the best of them all..." sigh.

"Yeah, right...'Peace feelers'."

"For King and Country, love..."

("Hey..." white-robed figure frowns at Sam. "He can't pull that. Isn't he here on probation?"

"Oh, she knows. Have a sense of humor, Paul." Peter shakes head.)

Michael Robinson  •  Link

Do we know anything about office furniture and storage at that time?

Joseph Williamson ( http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo… ) organized his papers in labeled drawers when under Secretary of State (Southern Department) -- the titles, but not the cross indexes, of the nine chests recorded in his journal for 1662-3 are given by Marshall @ p41- 42. By 1675, when Northern Secretary, his journal noted 12 numbered closed shelved cases each with a bust of a Caesar atop plus sequential lists of petitions, journals of foreign and domestic correspondence etc. For those curious the following give some of the flavor, 'Tiberias, III' Domestic, Collectiana, Angliana, Ecclesiastica, Offices, London, [Royal] Household, Revenue, Secretary's Office: 'Caligula IV' Ireland, Scotland Wales, Jersey Guernsey, Examinations Informers; and 'Nero VI' War Between France & Spain.
Alan Marshall 'Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, 1660-1685' Cambridge UP, 1994 pp. 41-3.

The scheme of using busts of the Caesars was probably a commonplace of the times, the celebrated library of Sir Robert Cotton ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_… ) was so cataloged with each bookcase surmounted by a bust of a Caesar, the manuscripts designated Caesar / Shelf letter / Volume number from right end -- the British Library, their current home, still uses these same designations for the individual manuscripts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cott…

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"He says, that the Vice- chamberlaine is now one of the greatest men in England again, and was he that did prevail with the King to let the Irish Bill go with the word “Nuisance.” "

L&M: See https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"He told me, that Sir G. Carteret’s declaration of giving double to any man that will prove that any of his people have demanded or taken any thing for forwarding the payment of the wages of any man (of which he sent us a copy yesterday, which we approved of) is set up, among other places, upon the House of Lords’ door. "

L&M: It was also displayed at the Navy Office.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

" the calling over [citing] the defaults of Members appearing in the House"

L&M: I.e. members failing to attend without authorized excuse: CJ, viii, 678.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Yet the Faction did desire to delay time, and contend so as to come to a division of the House; where, however, it was carried, by a few voices"

L&M: By 118 to 108: ib., p. 679.

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