Sunday 4 August 1667

(Lord’s day). Busy at my office from morning till night, in writing with my own hand fair our large general account of the expence and debt of the Navy, which lasted me till night to do, that I was almost blind, and Mr. Gibson with me all day long, and dined with me, and excellent discourse I had with him, he understanding all the business of the Navy most admirably. To walk a little with my wife at night in the garden, it being very hot weather again, and so to supper and to bed.

18 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

O dear.

"Mr. Gibson with me all day long, and dined with me, and excellent discourse I had with him, he understanding all the business of the Navy most admirably."

But 30 July , when last we heard of Gibson, Pepys was forced to confess: "I have the trouble upon my mind how to dispose of Mr. Gibson and one or two more I am concerned for in the Victualling business, which are to be now discharged."

Perhaps not? ;-)

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Well, Gibson was the man entrusted with coin during Sam's Medway panic...

Capable, trustworthy...And good at buttering the boss and having facts at fingertips. Sounds like Gibson isn't going anywhere.

Although there's such a thing as being too capable and understanding the boss' job too well...Watch it, Gib...

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The Rev. Ralph Josselin's Diary today

Aug: 4: The parliament sent home until oct. 10. by reason of the peace concluded July. 21. at Bredah between all the nations and us at war. France prospers in Flanders, now our fears are of a standing army, papists and persecution. but my hope is in god, I ended my sermons on Jer. 4.3.4. breaking hearts the way to save a nation from breaking, and god sends us hopes of peace, saving us on the account of his sovereignty and goodness
http://linux02.lib.cam.ac.uk/earl…

Geoff Hallett  •  Link

For annotators who missed it and those who could not possibly see it, there was a small piece on one of our programmes about the oldest surviving newspaper in the world, namely, Berrows Worcester Journal. They had a copy from 1690. The front page headline concerned William and Mary's coronation. They even had a 'celebrity' gossip column, guess who was the topic of the day, none other than our hero Sam. Unfortuantely no further details were given.

L. K. van Marjenhoff  •  Link

Re: the "trouble" upon Sam's mind of "how to dispose of Mr. Gibson" and one or two other productive members of the vittlin' corps

I believe that "trouble" just means "problem" here and doesn't reflect negatively on the men themselves, and that "how to dispose of" doesn't mean "how to get rid of" but instead means "what disposition to make of" -- i.e., what arrangements can he make for these good workers he is concerned for, what slot can he find to put them in when their department ceases to be.

cum salis grano  •  Link

how to dispose of Mr. Gibson
dispose various uses of old.
OED:
dispose, v.

[a. OF. dispose-r, rarely desp- (12-13th c. in Hatzf.), f. L. dis-, DIS- 1 + poser to place, lay down (see POSE, REPOSE); substituted for L. disp{omac}n{ebreve}re (which came down in OF. as despondre: see DISPONE), by form-association with inflexions and derivatives of the latter, as dispos, disposition, etc. Cf. COMPOSE, DEPOSE.]
I. Transitive senses.

1. To place (things) at proper distances apart and in proper positions with regard to each other, to place suitably, adjust; to place or arrange in a particular order. 1387
1628 SIR J. BEAUMONT Bosworth F. 659 This done, these valiant Knights dispose their Blades.
1628 T. SPENCER Logick 248 Precepts, which teach vs, to dispose arguments in a Syllogisme.
1695 WOODWARD Nat. Hist. Earth Pref., The said Terrestrial Matter is disposed into Strata or Layers.
b. To put into the proper or suitable place; to put away, stow away, deposit; to put (a number of things) each into the proper place, distribute. Now rare.

1662 J. DAVIES tr. Mandelslo's Trav. 183 The Gold and Silver is lock'd up in Chests, and dispos'd into the Towers of the Castle. Ibid. 256 No man but hath at least two wives, but dispos'd into several huts. ...

c. gen. To dispose of, deal with in any way.
1590

2. To regulate or govern in an orderly way; to order, control, direct, manage, command. Obs.
1398

1667 MILTON P.L. I. 246 Be it so, since hee Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid What shall be right.

3. To assign or deliver authoritatively. Obs.

4. To bestow, make over, hand over; to deal out, dispense, distribute; = dispose of (sense 8). Obs.
c1430

5. To put into the proper frame or condition for some action or result; to make fit or ready; to fit, prepare (to do, or to or for something); refl. to prepare oneself, get ready, make preparation. arch.
c1375

b. To make suitable, adapt, suit. Obs.

c. To bring into a particular physical or mental condition: in pa. pple.; see DISPOSED 2, 3.

6. To put into a favourable mood for (something); to give a tendency or inclination to; to incline, make prone (to something, or to do something).
a. To incline the mind or heart of; pa. pple. inclined: see DISPOSED 4. Also absol.
1602

1629 A. BAKER in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. II. III. 257 That the prolonging of your daies maie be a meane to dispose you for the better departure, when it shall please God to call you.
1697 DRYDEN Virg. Georg. IV. 214 He knew For Fruit the grafted Pear-tree to dispose.

c. To bring into a particular physical or mental condition: in pa. pple.; see DISPOSED 2, 3.

II. Intransitive senses.

7. To make arrangements; to determine or control the course of affairs or events; to ordain, appoint.
Esp. in proverb Man proposes, (but) God disposes [tr. ‘Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit,’ A Kempis De Imitatione I. xix].
1382

b. To settle matters, make terms. Obs.
1606 SHAKES. Ant. & Cl. IV. xiv. 123 For when she saw..you did suspect She had dispos'd with Cæsar, and that your rage Would not be purg'd, she sent you word she was dead.

8. dispose of (with indirect passive to be disposed of): {dag}a. To make a disposition, ordering, or arrangement of; to do what one will with; to order, control, regulate, manage: = sense 2. spec. in Astrol. (see quot. 1819). Obs.
1566

b. To put or get (anything) off one's hands; to put away, stow away, put into a settled state or position; to deal with (a thing) definitely; to get rid of; to get done with, settle, finish. In recent use sometimes spec. to do away with, ‘settle’, or demolish (a claim, argument, opponent, etc.); also humorously, to make away with, consume (food).
1610 SHAKES. Temp. I. ii. 225 Of the Kings ship, The Marriners, say how thou hast disposd. ...
. 1666 PEPYS Diary 16 Aug., It was so pleasing a sight to see my papers disposed of.

c. To make over or part with by way of sale or bargain, sell.
1676

d. To make fit or ready: = sense 5. Obs.
1655 FULLER Waltham Abby 13 He..acquainted him with his dying condition, to dispose of his soul for another world.
9. dispose upon or on: to dispose of (see prec. b and c). Sc. Obs.
1632 LITHGOW Trav. IV. 166 The lands they..dispose upon to valerous Souldiers.

10. dispose with: to dispose of (see 8c). Obs.
1653 H. COGAN tr. Pinto's Trav. IV. 8 For his particular he had no power to dispose with any part of the booty.

Rex Gordon  •  Link

Sam in the celebrity gossip columns ...

1690 - This was one of the times when Sam was under vicious political attack from the Shaftesbury faction. Sam had thought - boldly - about returning to Parliament earlier in the year, but in June he was arrested and imprisoned in the Gatehouse as "a suspected Jacobite." He was not cleared of the charges until October 1690.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

For a ripping good backstory of how SP came to be in the 1690 celebrity gossip columns read 'The Plot Against Pepys' by James Long and Ben Long

Reviewed by Jeannine Kerwin in an In-Depth Article on this site

http://www.pepysdiary.com/indepth…

djc  •  Link

re Mr Gibson. Yes, a problem that occurs to this day. We wish to divest ourselves of a subsidiary business before it really goes bad. But we employ some good people there who need to be found a new place in the old firm.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Busy at my office from morning till night, in writing with my own hand fair our large general account of the expence and debt of the Navy"

L&M: Arrangements for the new custons farm were not concluded until 6 September. The Treasury (not fully consulted) objected to the rent fixed by the Prive Council: Carte 35, f. 624r.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Mr. Gibson with me all day long, and dined with me, and excellent discourse I had with him, he understanding all the business of the Navy most admirably."

L&M: Richard Gibson (now one of Pepys's clerks) had been a ship's purser.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Today -- Tuesday, August 4, 2020 -- would traditionally be the start of the 3 day Lammas Fair in Exeter, Devon. Covid19 has caused it to be cancelled for only the third time in 900 years. For pictures of the parade last year, and the white glove traditionally hosted over the Town Hall for the duration of the Fair, see:
https://www.devonlive.com/news/de…

The harvest continues, regardless. Just the fun is cancelled.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

That should be "hoisted over the Town Hall" ... sorry.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Lisle = Lille today.

Louis XIV's adventure into Flanders this Spring is called the War of Devolution, named for a local custom governing the inheritance of land in certain provinces of the Spanish Netherlands, by which daughters of a first marriage were preferred to sons of subsequent marriages.

Louis XIV began the war claiming this custom should apply to sovereign territories also, so that his wife, Marie-Thérèse, should succeed her father, Philip IV of Spain (d. 1665), in the majority of the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands in preference to her younger half-brother, Charles II of Spain, a sickly epileptic unlikely to live long or produce heirs. [I've also seen the argument that the Spanish had not finished paying her dowry, so Louis XIV thought this was fair.]

The French army, under Marshal de Turenne, advanced into Flanders in May 1667 and easily secured its objectives.

Louis XIV then turned to diplomacy and in January 1668 concluded a treaty with the Holy Roman emperor, Leopold I, whereby they agreed to partition the Spanish dominions between themselves on the Spanish king’s death and in which it was also stipulated how much territory in the meantime France was to annex in the Netherlands.

The French also tried to win English support for their claims, ... by a treaty of April 1668 France retained Bergues, Furnes, Armentières, Oudenaarde, Courtrai, Lille, Douai, Tournai, Binche, Ath, and Charleroi. But there's a lot of action covered by those ...'s which may or may not be relevant to the Diary.

For more about the War of Devolution, see
https://www.britannica.com/event/…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

More on the War of Devolution

In the fighting, the French encountered minimal resistance; however, Louis was more concerned to assert his inheritance rights in the Spanish Empire, and consequently returned much of his gains in the May 1668 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The terms were agreed by Emperor Leopold in January 1668, reinforced by the Triple Alliance of England, Sweden and the Dutch Republic.

The conflict marked the end of the long-standing Franco-Dutch alliance, and was the first of the French wars of expansion that dominated Europe for the next 50 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War…

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