Thursday 9 May 1667

Up, and to the office, and at noon home to dinner, and then with my wife and Barker by coach, and left them at Charing Cross, and I to St. James’s, and there found Sir W. Coventry alone in his chamber, and sat and talked with him more than I have done a great while of several things of the Navy, how our debts and wants do unfit us for doing any thing. He tells me he hears stories of Commissioner Pett, of selling timber to the Navy under other names, which I told him I believe is true, and did give him an instance. He told me also how his clerk Floyd he hath put away for his common idlenesse and ill company, and particularly that yesterday he was found not able to come and attend him, by being run into the arme in a squabble, though he pretends it was done in the streets by strangers, at nine at night, by the Maypole in the Strand. Sir W. Coventry did write to me this morning to recommend him another, which I could find in my heart to do W. Hewer for his good; but do believe he will not part with me, nor have I any mind to let him go. I would my brother were fit for it, I would adventure him there. He insists upon an unmarried man, that can write well, and hath French enough to transcribe it only from a copy, and may write shorthand, if it may be. Thence with him to my Lord Chancellor at Clarendon House, to a Committee for Tangier, where several things spoke of and proceeded on, and particularly sending Commissioners thither before the new Governor goes, which I think will signify as much good as any thing else that hath been done about the place, which is none at all. I did again tell them the badness of their credit by the time their tallies took before they become payable, and their spending more than their fund. They seem well satisfied with what I said, and I am glad that I may be remembered that I do tell them the case plain; but it troubled me that I see them hot upon it, that the Governor shall not be paymaster, which will force me either to the providing one there to do it (which I will never undertake), or leave the employment, which I had rather do.

Mightily pleased with the noblenesse of this house, and the brave furniture and pictures, which indeed is very noble, and, being broke up, I with Sir G. Carteret in his coach into Hide Park, to discourse of things, and spent an hour in this manner with great pleasure, telling me all his concernments, and how he is gone through with the purchase for my Lady Jemimah and her husband; how the Treasury is like to come into the hands of a Committee; but that not that, nor anything else, will do our business, unless the King himself will mind his business, and how his servants do execute their parts; he do fear an utter ruin in the state, and that in a little time, if the King do not mind his business soon; that the King is very kind to him, and to my Lord Sandwich, and that he doubts not but at his coming home, which he expects about Michaelmas, he will be very well received. But it is pretty strange how he began again the business of the intention of a marriage of my Lord Hinchingbroke to a daughter of my Lord Burlington’s to my Lord Chancellor, which he now tells me as a great secret, when he told it me the last Sunday but one; but it may be the poor man hath forgot, and I do believe he do make it a secret, he telling me that he has not told it to any but myself, end this day to his daughter my Lady Jemimah, who looks to lie down about two months hence. After all this discourse we turned back and to White Hall, where we parted, and I took up my wife at Unthanke’s, and so home, and in our street, at the Three Tuns’ Tavern door, I find a great hubbub; and what was it but two brothers have fallen out, and one killed the other. And who should they be but the two Fieldings; one whereof, Bazill, was page to my Lady Sandwich; and he hath killed the other, himself being very drunk, and so is sent to Newgate. I to the office and did as much business as my eyes would let me, and so home to supper and to bed.

20 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The Royal Society today at Arundel House — from the Hooke Folio Online

62
May. 9. 1667. The Brick engine was produced againe. and tryd wth some clay but that being too stiff the tryall suceeded not. the company discoursing afterwards vpon the whole & considering that this way would require space of ground to lay the bricks thus made thought best to lay it asid

(Dr. King of cutting dogs skin) Dr Clack of cutting out doggs spleen). anatomicall comitte at Sr. G Ents Lobsters) Sr R mor Aub: Parrys work). The curator [ Mr Hooke ] was orderd to send to Sr. G Ent the medicall presented by mor meniot to the Society to pervse & giue account.

The same was orderd to procure dipping & Horizontall needles as nice as could be gotten. as also so make the apparatus ready fit to obserue the variation of the needle

Expt. for next day. comparing reflecting tube, 2 opening thorax of dog & keep him aliue wth. bellow. 3 tryall wth. Dr. Cottons Loadstone 4. the tryall in St. Iames park of measuring the earth.

http://webapps.qmul.ac.uk/cell/Ho…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Arlington to Sandwich
Written from: Whitehall
Date: 9 May 1667

Upon receipt of Lord Sandwich's letter of April 11/21, he conferred with the Chancellor [Clarendon], as to the advisability of moving the King on the point of new Instructions for his Lordship's guidance in his Embassy. They came, however, to the conclusion that it would be well to wait for the receipt of another despatch from Portugal. Adds that everybody foretells speedy desolation in Flanders, unless the Emperor be able to send powerful succours.
_____

Sir George Carteret to Sandwich
Written from: London
Date: 9 May 1667

Has apprised the Lord Chancellor of Lord Sandwich's intention to ally his family with that of Lord Burlington. The Chancellor extolled the worth of the young Lady [Anne, 4th daughter of Richard, Earl of Burlington, married to Lord Sandwich's eldest son, Edward, 2nd Earl]. An Answer is already come from Lord Burlington, "by which he accepts of the motion, with all imaginable joy & satisfaction".

Adds, at length, "a full account of Mr. Godolphin's money business".

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…

Tom Carr  •  Link

I would have never guessed that the word "hubbub" was this old.

cum salis grano  •  Link

savage cry"
[In 16th c. hooboube, -boobe, often referred to as an Irish outcry, and prob. representing some Irish expression. Cf. Gaelic ub! ub! ubub! an interj. of aversion or contempt; abu! the war-cry of the ancient Irish.
Connexion with hoop, whoop, has been suggested by Richardson; but this was app. only a later association.]

1. A confused noise of a multitude shouting or yelling; esp. the confused shouting of a battle-cry or ‘hue and cry’ by wild or savage races.
With Irish hubbub cf. HUBBUBOO. The Welsh hubbub seems to have been (see quot. 1645) a ‘hue and cry’ only.

1555 W. WATREMAN Fardle Facions I. vi. 103 Thei [Ichthiophagi of Afrike] flocke together to go drincke..shouting as they go with an yrishe whobub.
1581 J. BELL Haddon's Answ. Osor. 326b, Mightier is the force of the Veritie..then that it can be dasht out of countenaunce with Irishe hooboobbes.
1586 J. HOOKER Girald. Irel. in Holinshed II. 156 According to the custome of the countrie, the hobub or the hue and crie was raised.
1590 SPENSER F.Q. III. x. 43 They heard a noyse of many bagpipes shrill, And shrieking hububs them approaching nere.
1600 W. WATSON Decachordon IX. viii. (1602) 327 With hallowes and howbubs, with whowbes, whowes, and outcries against all.
1611 SHAKES. Wint. T. IV. iv. 629 Had not the old-man come in with a Whoo-bub against his Daughter. 1612 T. JAMES Jesuits Downf. 53 Hissed out the College with whouts and hobubs.
c1613 SPELMAN Relat. Virginia 24 in Capt. J. Smith's Wks. (Arb.) p. cv, A great number Indians..began with an oulis and whoopubb.
1622 R. HAWKINS Voy. S. Sea xxvii. 58 Wee..gaue them the Hubbub, after the manner of the Indians, and assaulted them.

not to be confused with
hullabaloo, n. (int.)
Tumultuous noise or clamour; uproar; clamorous confusion. Also fig.
1762

cum salis grano  •  Link

Samuell would be happy if he read the Gazette this day
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/i…

"The Danish fleet have only 15 Men of War rigged,but the French have 2 ready for sea."

cum salis grano  •  Link

Errata: Danes yet to be rigged

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Basil Fielding

Was in fact stabbed to death by his drunken brother Christopher. (L&M note)

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

It was Basil who was killed. They were sons of George Fielding, Earl of Desmond, and uncles of the father of Henry Fielding the novelist.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Sir W. Coventry did write to me this morning to recommend him another [to replace Philip Loyd, the clerk he has just sacked]; which I could find in my heart to do W. Hewer for his good; but do believe he will not part with me, nor have I any mind to let him go ....He insists upon an unmarried man, that can write well, and hath French enough to transcribe it only from a copy, and may write shorthand, if it may be."

This passage indicates writing shorthand was a prized but not uncommon skill among clerks and others in Pepys's milieu: Sir Isaac Newton, the Clerk of the Acts and Will Hewer wrote and transcribed using Thomas Shelton's Tachygraphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tho…
A century on US-President Thomas Jefferson also used it.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"He tells me he hears stories of Commissioner Pett, of selling timber to the Navy under other names, which I told him I believe is true, and did give him an instance."

L&M: For this case, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Pepys, defending his office before the Brooke House Committee two years later, denied that Pett had ever dealt in any navy goods except one parcel of Albemarle's timber, and adduced this as a proof of the improved efficiency of the Board as compared with the Cromwellian administrators , under whom Pett had conducted a busy trade. PL 2874, p. 403.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

“Lady Jemimah, who looks to lie down about two months hence.”

A rather course way of saying she is seven months pregnant. But at least Pepys has noticed this time.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

The Fielding brothers' father, George, was the 1st Earl of Desmond, and he had died in 1665 so he missed this tragedy. George Fielding was a son of Susan Villiers (which reminds me that their uncle Buckingham is still on the run).

Their brother, William, is now the 2nd Earl of Desmond (1640-1685).

Mary K  •  Link

A rather course (coarse?) way of saying .......

Not necessarily coarse. Pepys may be using "looks to" in the sense of "expects to."
e.g. "I look to receive an answer by return of post"

Tonyel  •  Link

"and how he is gone through with the purchase for my Lady Jemimah and her husband"
The purchase of what? Have I missed something?

Thanks, by the way, for the definition of abu as an Irish war cry. Pete Seeger used it in a comic song about the police banning singing in Washington Square c. 60 years ago and I can stop wondering what he meant at last.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Thanks for the spell check, Mary K ... never my strongest subject at school.

It was that Lady Jem was expected to "lie down" that I didn't like. Makes her sound like a breed mare.

Mary K  •  Link

"lie down" just reminded me of the old term for a maternity hospital; a "lying-in hospital".

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