Tuesday 5 March 1666/67
Up, and to the office, where met and sat all the morning, doing little for want of money, but only bear the countenance of an office. At noon home to dinner, and then to the office again, and there comes Martin my purser, and I walked with him awhile in the garden, I giving him good advice to beware of coming any more with high demands for supernumeraries or other things, for now Sir W. Pen is come to mind the business, the passing of his accounts will not be so easy as the last. He tells me he will never need it again, it being as easy, and to as much purpose to do the same thing otherwise, and how he do keep his Captain’s table, and by that means hath the command of his Captains, and do not fear in a 5th-rate ship constantly employed to get a 1000l. in five years time, and this year, besides all his spendings, which are I fear high, he hath got at this day clear above 150l. in a voyage of about five or six months, which is a brave trade.
He gone I to the office, and there all the afternoon late doing much business, and then to see Sir W. Batten, whose leg is all but better than it was, and like to do well. I by discourse do perceive he and his Lady are to their hearts out with my Lord Bruncker and Mrs. Williams, to which I added something, but, I think, did not venture too far with them. But, Lord! to see to what a poor content any acquaintance among these people, or the people of the world, as they now-adays go, is worth; for my part I and my wife will keep to one another and let the world go hang, for there is nothing but falseness in it. So home to supper and hear my wife and girle sing a little, and then to bed with much content of mind.
15 Annotations
First Reading
Michael L • Link
"for my part I and my wife will keep to one another and let the world go hang, for there is nothing but falseness in it."
And this melodramatic statement is from the guy with concealed trysts and off-the-books schemes for gaining silver accessories?
Why is it that the people most vocal in bemoaning others' behaviors are too often the same people who would do that behavior themselves.
Robert Gertz • Link
"...I giving him good advice to beware of coming any more with high demands for supernumeraries or other things, for now Sir W. Pen is come to mind the business, the passing of his accounts will not be so easy as the last."
Falseness, eh?
Still, nice to see the Pepysian second honeymoon continues despite the rendezvous with Bagwell.
Tony Eldridge • Link
I had not realised that Betty Lane's husband has also been found a job by Sam which keeps him out of the country for long periods - just like Mr Bagwell.
What a neat arrangement! The husbands get the chance to make some money, Sam gets the chance to make the wives. A win-win situation.
A. De Araujo • Link
"for my part I and my wife will keep to one another and let the world go hang..."
Then they will start singing:"Baby, it is you and me against the world...."
language hat • Link
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Robert Gertz • Link
"Bess, it's just you and me...And Bagwell, Mercer, Mrs. Martin, Mrs. Knipp, Diana Crisp, Doll Lane, Mrs. Burroughs, Gervais' assistant Jane (oops, no, she turned me down), little Mrs. Tooker (hmmn, perhaps best not to include her and her clap), a flighty girl I met once or twice, doubtless others whose names I can't remember, and if, there is a God who loves his Samuel, one day, Betty Mitchell."
andy • Link
for my part I and my wife will keep to one another and let the world go hang
with you there,Sam.
cum salis grano • Link
Samuell's chest full of medallions or scalps.
Wim van der Meij • Link
It is easy: my sins are not as bad as the next man's.
Ruben • Link
Ah, love, let us be true to one another!
Thank you for Arnold's lines. I enjoyed the moment. Considering Samuel's diary, they are forgiving words. Certainly a Victorian poet is far from a Restauration mentality. But the contrast helps to comprehend the gap between them, that I presume was greater than the one between Samuel and our time.
Bradford • Link
Yet the lines are as sadly appropriate to Pepys's time---he who never could have known them---as to Arnold's, as to ours.
Just as "let the world go hang, for there is nothing but falseness in it" pre-echoes, a little, a teenager from half a century ago named Holden.
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"and this year, besides all his spendings, which are I fear high, he hath got at this day clear above 150l. in a voyage of about five or six months, which is a brave trade."
L&M: For pursers' profits, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
San Diego Sarah • Link
"But, Lord! to see to what a poor content any acquaintance among these people, or the people of the world, as they now-adays go, is worth; ..."
I think Pepys is bewailing the lack of culture (poor content) Batten and friends (any acquaintance ... these people) -- and in fact people in general -- the sort of people with whom the Battens are associating these days.
As a middle-aged (for those days) man, Pepys is still curious about books and ideas and music and paintings and culture and improving himself -- and Elizabeth.
Admiral and Lady Batten are much older. They probably play cards with anyone who will play for pennies, drink too much Madeira, and go to bed early, complaining loudly about their arthritis.
BORING.
Scube • Link
Spot on SDS - I think you summed up what Sam is thinking. But on his immoral carrying ons. I am still not clear how much Bess knows, cares, or accepts, and whether this simply was accepted (at least by the men) back then.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Meanwhile, back at Whitehall, Charles II is penning a quick note to his sister, Minette, Duchesse d'Orleans.
As reported in CHARLES II AND HIS COURT
BY A. G. A. BRETT
NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
LONDON: METHUEN & GO. LTD.
1910
https://archive.org/stream/charle…
It was in these later stages of Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon’s career that the younger courtiers found it safe to vent their dislike by ridiculing him before Charles II, as when Killegrew or George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham strutted up and down bearing the shovel and bellows for mace and great seal!
Charles II shows his feelings in the matter plainly, in a letter to Madame, 5 March, 1668
[I THINK THE AUTHOR GOT CONFUSED BY THE MONTH/YEAR CHANGE, SO I'M POSTING IN 1667 WHERE IT MAKES MORE SENSE - sej]:
"I will not deny that naturally I am more lazy then I ought to be, but you are very ill-informed if you do not know that my Tresury and indeede all my other affairs, are in as good a methode as our understandings can put them into.
“And I think the peace I have made between Spain and Portugal and the defensive league I have made with Holland should give some testimony to the world that we think of our interest here. I do assure you that I neglect nothing for want of pains. If we fail for want of understanding, there is no help for it. ...
“I assure you that my Lord of Buckingham does not govern affairs here. I do not doubt but my Lord Clarendon, and some of his friends here, will discreditt me and my affaires as much as they can, but I shall say no more upon that subject, for, if you knew how ill a servant he has been to me, you would not doubt but he would be glad things should not go on smoothly, now he is out of affairs, and most of the vexation and trouble I have at present in my affairs I owe to him."
===
I wonder if Charles believed all this, or was he putting a good spin on things for French consumption?
And why didn't old, ill, tired Clarendon take the hints and retire gracefully?
My guess is that he was wise enough to guess at the chaos that would follow, led by the likes of Buckingham and Ashley-Cooper. I wonder what his solution would have been to his successor.