Wednesday 12 August 1668

Up, and all the morning busy at my office. Thence to the Excise Office, and so to the Temple to take counsel about Major Nicholls’s business for the King. So to several places about business, and among others to Drumbleby’s about the mouths for my paper tubes, and so to the ’Change and home. Met Captain Cocke, who tells me that he hears for certain the Duke of York will lose the authority of an Admiral, and be governed by a Committee: and all our Office changed; only they are in dispute whether I shall continue or no, which puts new thoughts in me, but I know not whether to be glad or sorry. Home to dinner, where Pelling dines with us, and brings some partridges, which is very good meat; and, after dinner, I, and wife, and Mercer, and Deb., to the Duke of York’s house, and saw “Mackbeth,” to our great content, and then home, where the women went to the making of my tubes, and I to the office, and then come Mrs. Turner and her husband to advise about their son, the Chaplain, who is turned out of his ship, a sorrow to them, which I am troubled for, and do give them the best advice I can, and so they gone we to bed.

17 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Captain Cocke...tells me that he hears for certain the Duke of York will lose the authority of an Admiral, and be governed by a Committee:"

Captain Cocke may for certain have heard this, but it did not happen, L&M note, until the Test Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test… forced his resignation in 1672.

Katherine  •  Link

Please, what is a tube?

Mary  •  Link

the making of my tubes.

According to "The Big Brown Eyes of Samuel Pepys" ( cited earlier in the journal Archives of Ophthalmology) these tubes were 3 inches in length with small orifices at the lower end. They worked by eliminating binocular vision and glare. At first they seemed to offer Pepys some relief and hope and they became his favoured visual aid for some time.

Jenny  •  Link

Restructuring the office. Perennial issue.

Bryan M  •  Link

"these tubes were 3 inches in length with small orifices at the lower end ... they became his favoured visual aid for some time"

Oh, to to be privy to the comments of Tom Hayter and the other Navy clerks down at the Dolphin over the coming weeks. Staff can be sooo cruel.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the making of my tubes"

These contraptions were supported by scientific testimony -- such as it was --: “An easy help for decayed sight,” *The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society*, No. 37” http://goo.gl/k1S72

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Of course, their support in a publication of the Royal Society -- who were known to try, with great solemnity, to weigh air! -- might very well have rendered the "spectacular tubes" even more risible in the office!

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

"and all our Office changed; only they are in dispute whether I shall continue or no, which puts new thoughts in me, but I know not whether to be glad or sorry."

As Jenny points out, reorgs are a perennial issue, as is the ambivalence of the "survivor" that Sam is feeling...

Adrianne  •  Link

Hmm... the mouseover for Thomas Turner, right next to a mention of his son Thomas Jr., says "... they had one son, Moses." Wiped Tommy Jr. from history, did they?

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Met Captain Cocke, who tells me that he hears for certain the Duke of York will lose the authority of an Admiral, and be governed by a Committee:"

L&M: The Duke was not replaced by a commission until the Test Act forced his resignation in 1673.
---------------
The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and nonconformists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tes…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

'Charles II: August 1668', in Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Charles II, 1667-8, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green (London, 1893), pp. 516-565. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

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Aug. 12. 1668
Woolwich.
Will. Hannam, master attendant, to the Navy Commissioners.

The ships’ officers are very negligent;
there is no attendance given but by the boatswains and their servants;
if the boatswains are sick, the ships are left.

The officers and servants borne upon ships that are sunk, only come to their
monthly musters;
this puts his Majesty to an extraordinary expense, as I am forced to engage
the riggers afloat who should be employed in them.

There is a great deal of provision aboard the Falcon, which ought to be taken
out, as she swims deep, and they cannot get at the ballast to lighten her.

Has chains to lay, and other work to perform before the winter, which cannot
be accomplished except he has better attendance.
[S.P. Dom., Car. II. 244, No. 148.]

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Aug. 12. 1668
St. James's Palace
M. Wren to Sam. Pepys.

I send an order to the master of the Bezane for carrying money to the Downs
for payment of tickets;
tomorrow I will send his Royal Highness’s directions for bringing back the
anchors and cables going to Barbados.
[S.P. Dom., Car. II. 244, No. 151.]

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Aug. 12. 1668
M. Wren to Sam. Pepys.

His Royal Highness approves of the bringing back of the anchors, sails, &c.,
from the Barbados, and will send his orders therein.

I believe the Speaker would have stayed in town this day, as his Royal
Highness sent for him about business of importance of his own in Ireland,
but his occasions were so urgent that he could not stay,

so that the attending him with Mr. Acworth’s papers must be deferred;
I desire you to have them in readiness by his return.
[S.P. Dom., Car. II. 244, No. 152.]

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Aug. 12. 1668
St. James's Palace
M. Wren to the Navy Commissioners.

I send an order for allowing pensions to seamen wounded in the West Indies
who, not paying to the Chest, cannot be relieved by it.

His Royal Highness is satisfied that Wm. Proctor received his wounds in those
parts, and it was upon his petition for relief that he moved the Council for
their order.
[S.P. Dom., Car. II. 244, No. 153.]

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Aug. 12. 1668
The King to the Attorney-General.

You are to draw up a special licence,
in the most beneficial manner, to Benj. Worseley, M.D.,
of the sole exercise of his invention of a way of cultivating and curing senna
in the American plantations for 14 years,
as the addition of any new commodity to the plantations contributes to the
increase of the wealth and bullion of the nation;
we having been privy to his first undertaking, and the goodness of the
commodity being approved by our physicians.
[S.P. Dom., Entry Book 30, f. 65.]

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... all our Office changed; only they are in dispute whether I shall continue or no, which puts new thoughts in me, ..."

L&M are correct that James dodges the bullet this time. SPOILER: More important, it's Pepys' new thoughts which save James. This is the day it dawns on Pepys that he has a mission to fulfill in creating the professional Royal Navy. Stay tuned and see the idea grow over time, and sadly for long after the Diary.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

CLARIFICATION: The Test Act passed in 1672 ... Lord High Admiral James, Duke of York resigned all his offices in 1673 rather than take the oath.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Mr. Pelling must be very good company; he practically lives at the Pepys' place these days. Does he never work? Yet Pepys' isn't jelous??? Maybe Sam's too preoccupied ...

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