Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1664 N.S. Complete

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11th. Up, after much pleasant discourse with my wife, and to the office,
where we sat all the morning, and did much business, and some much to my
content by prevailing against Sir W. Batten for the King's profit. At
noon home to dinner, my wife and I hand to fist to a very fine pig. This
noon Mr. Falconer came and visited my wife, and brought her a present, a
silver state-cup and cover, value about L3 or L4, for the courtesy I did
him the other day. He did not stay dinner with me. I am almost sorry for
this present, because I would have reserved him for a place to go in
summer a-visiting at Woolwich with my wife.

12th. Up, and ready, did find below Mr. Creed's boy with a letter from
his master for me. So I fell to reading it, and it is by way of stating
the case between S. Pepys and J. Creed most excellently writ, both showing
his stoutness and yet willingness to peace, reproaching me yet flattering
me again, and in a word in as good a manner as I think the world could
have wrote, and indeed put me to a greater stand than ever I thought I
could have been in this matter. All the morning thinking how to behave
myself in the business, and at noon to the Coffee-house; thence by his
appointment met him upon the 'Change, and with him back to the
Coffee-house, where with great seriousness and strangeness on both sides
he said his part and I mine, he sometimes owning my favour and assistance,
yet endeavouring to lessen it, as that the success of his business was not
wholly or very much to be imputed to that assistance: I to alledge the
contrary, and plainly to tell him that from the beginning I never had it
in my mind to do him all that kindnesse for nothing, but he gaining 5 or
L600, I did expect a share of it, at least a real and not a complimentary
acknowledgment of it. In fine I said nothing all the while that I need
fear he can do me more hurt with them than before I spoke them. The most
I told him was after we were come to a peace, which he asked me whether he
should answer the Board's letter or no. I told him he might forbear it a
while and no more. Then he asked how the letter could be signed by them
without their much enquiry. I told him it was as I worded it and nothing
at all else of any moment, whether my words be ever hereafter spoken of
again or no. So that I have the same neither better nor worse force over
him that I had before, if he should not do his part. And the peace
between us was this: Says he after all, well, says he, I know you will
expect, since there must be some condescension, that it do become me to
begin it, and therefore, says he, I do propose (just like the interstice
between the death of the old and the coming in of the present king, all
the time is swallowed up as if it had never been) so our breach of
friendship may be as if it had never been, that I should lay aside all
misapprehensions of him or his first letter, and that he would reckon
himself obliged to show the same ingenuous acknowledgment of my love and
service to him as at the beginning he ought to have done, before by my
first letter I did (as he well observed) put him out of a capacity of
doing it, without seeming to do it servilely, and so it rests, and I shall
expect how he will deal with me. After that I began to be free, and both
of us to discourse of other things, and he went home with me and dined
with me and my wife and very pleasant, having a good dinner and the
opening of my lampry (cutting a notch on one side), which proved very
good. After dinner he and I to Deptford, walking all the way, where we
met Sir W. Petty and I took him back, and I got him to go with me to his
vessel and discourse it over to me, which he did very well, and then
walked back together to the waterside at Redriffe, with good discourse all
the way. So Creed and I by boat to my house, and thence to coach with my
wife and called at Alderman Backewell's and there changed Mr. Falconer's
state-cup, that he did give us the other day, for a fair tankard. The cup
weighed with the fashion L5 16s., and another little cup that Joyce Norton
did give us 17s., both L6 13s.; for which we had the tankard, which came
to L6 10s., at 5s. 7d. per oz., and 3s. in money, and with great content
away thence to my brother's, Creed going away there, and my brother
bringing me the old silk standard that I lodged there long ago, and then
back again home, and thence, hearing that my uncle Wight had been at my
house, I went to him to the Miter, and there with him and Maes, Norbury,
and Mr. Rawlinson till late eating some pot venison (where the Crowne
earthen pot pleased me mightily), and then homewards and met Mr. Barrow,
so back with him to the Miter and sat talking about his business of his
discontent in the yard, wherein sometimes he was very foolish and pettish,
till 12 at night, and so went away, and I home and up to my wife a-bed,
with my mind ill at ease whether I should think that I had by this made
myself a bad end by missing the certainty of L100 which I proposed to
myself so much, or a good one by easing myself of the uncertain good
effect but the certain trouble and reflection which must have fallen on me
if we had proceeded to a public dispute, ended besides embarking myself
against my Lord, who (which I had forgot) had given him his hand for the
value of the pieces of eight at his rates which were all false, which by
the way I shall take heed to the giving of my Lord notice of it hereafter
whenever he goes out again.

13th. Up, and after I had told my wife in the morning in bed the passages
yesterday with Creed my head and heart was mightily lighter than they were
before, and so up and to the office, and thence, after sitting, at 11
o'clock with Mr. Coventry to the African House, and there with Sir W.
Ryder by agreement we looked over part of my Lord Peterborough's accounts,
these being by Creed and Vernaty. Anon down to dinner to a table which
Mr. Coventry keeps here, out of his L300 per annum as one of the
Assistants to the Royall Company, a very pretty dinner, and good company,
and excellent discourse, and so up again to our work for an hour till the
Company came to having a meeting of their own, and so we broke up and
Creed and I took coach and to Reeves, the perspective glass maker, and
there did indeed see very excellent microscopes, which did discover a
louse or mite or sand most perfectly and largely. Being sated with that
we went away (yet with a good will were it not for my obligation to have
bought one) and walked to the New Exchange, and after a turn or two and
talked I took coach and home, and so to my office, after I had been with
my wife and saw her day's work in ripping the silke standard, which we
brought home last night, and it will serve to line a bed, or for twenty
uses, to our great content. And there wrote fair my angry letter to my
father upon that that he wrote to my cozen Roger Pepys, which I hope will
make him the more carefull to trust to my advice for the time to come
without so many needless complaints and jealousys, which are troublesome
to me because without reason.

14th (Lord's day). Up and to church alone, where a lazy sermon of Mr.
Mills, upon a text to introduce catechizing in his parish, which I
perceive he intends to begin. So home and very pleasant with my wife at
dinner. All the afternoon at my office alone doing business, and then in
the evening after a walk with my wife in the garden, she and I to my uncle
Wight's to supper, where Mr. Norbury, but my uncle out of tune, and after
supper he seemed displeased mightily at my aunt's desiring [to] put off a
copper kettle, which it seems with great study he had provided to boil
meat in, and now she is put in the head that it is not wholesome, which
vexed him, but we were very merry about it, and by and by home, and after
prayers to bed.

15th. Up, and carrying my wife to my Lord's lodgings left her, and I to
White Hall, to the Duke; where he first put on a periwigg to-day; but
methought his hair cut short in order thereto did look very prettily of
itself, before he put on his periwigg.

[Charles II. followed his brother in the use of the periwig in the
following April.]

Thence to his closet and there did our business, and thence Mr. Coventry
and I down to his chamber and spent a little time, and so parted, and I
took my wife homeward, I stopping at the Coffee-house, and thence a while
to the 'Change, where great newes of the arrivall of two rich ships, the
Greyhound and another, which they were mightily afeard of, and great
insurance given, and so home to dinner, and after an houre with my wife at
her globes, I to the office, where very busy till 11 at night, and so home
to supper and to bed. This afternoon Sir Thomas Chamberlin came to the
office to me, and showed me several letters from the East Indys, showing
the height that the Dutch are come to there, showing scorn to all the
English, even in our only Factory there of Surat, beating several men, and
hanging the English Standard St. George under the Dutch flagg in scorn;
saying, that whatever their masters do or say at home, they will do what
they list, and will be masters of all the world there; and have so
proclaimed themselves Soveraigne of all the South Seas; which certainly
our King cannot endure, if the Parliament will give him money. But I doubt
and yet do hope they will not yet, till we are more ready for it.

16th. Up and to the office, where very busy all the morning, and most
with Mr. Wood, I vexing him about his masts. At noon to the 'Change a
little and thence brought Mr. Barrow to dinner with me, where I had a
haunch of venison roasted, given me yesterday, and so had a pretty dinner,
full of discourse of his business, wherein the poor man is mightily
troubled, and I pity him in it, but hope to get him some ease. He being
gone I to the office, where very busy till night, that my uncle Wight and
Mr. Maes came to me, and after discourse about Maes' business to supper
very merry, but my mind upon my business, and so they being gone I to my
Vyall a little, which I have not done some months, I think, before, and
then a little to my office, at 11 at night, and so home and to bed.

17th. Up, and with my wife, setting her down by her father's in Long
Acre, in so ill looked a place, among all the whore houses, that I was
troubled at it, to see her go thither. Thence I to White Hall and there
walked up and down talking with Mr. Pierce, who tells me of the King's
giving of my Lord Fitz-Harding two leases which belong indeed to the
Queene, worth L20,000 to him; and how people do talk of it, and other
things of that nature which I am sorry to hear. He and I walked round the
Park with great pleasure, and back again, and finding no time to speak
with my Lord of Albemarle, I walked to the 'Change and there met my wife
at our pretty Doll's, and so took her home, and Creed also whom I met
there, and sent her hose, while Creed and I staid on the 'Change, and by
and by home and dined, where I found an excellent mastiffe, his name
Towser, sent me by a chyrurgeon. After dinner I took my wife again by
coach (leaving Creed by the way going to Gresham College, of which he is
now become one of the virtuosos) and to White Hall, where I delivered a
paper about Tangier to my Lord Duke of Albemarle in the council chamber,
and so to Mrs. Hunt's to call my wife, and so by coach straight home, and
at my office till 3 o'clock in the morning, having spent much time this
evening in discourse with Mr. Cutler, who tells me how the Dutch deal with
us abroad and do not value us any where, and how he and Sir W. Rider have
found reason to lay aside Captain Cocke in their company, he having played
some indiscreet and unfair tricks with them, and has lost himself every
where by his imposing upon all the world with the conceit he has of his
own wit, and so has, he tells me, Sir R. Ford also, both of whom are very
witty men. He being gone Sir W. Rider came and staid with me till about
12 at night, having found ourselves work till that time, about
understanding the measuring of Mr. Wood's masts, which though I did so
well before as to be thought to deal very hardly against Wood, yet I am
ashamed I understand it no better, and do hope yet, whatever be thought of
me, to save the King some more money, and out of an impatience to breake
up with my head full of confused confounded notions, but nothing brought
to a clear comprehension, I was resolved to sit up and did till now it is
ready to strike 4 o'clock, all alone, cold, and my candle not enough left
to light me to my owne house, and so, with my business however brought to
some good understanding, and set it down pretty clear, I went home to bed
with my mind at good quiet, and the girl sitting up for me (the rest all
a-bed). I eat and drank a little, and to bed, weary, sleepy, cold, and my
head akeing.

18th. Called up to the office and much against my will I rose, my head
aching mightily, and to the office, where I did argue to good purpose for
the King, which I have been fitting myself for the last night against Mr.
Wood about his masts, but brought it to no issue. Very full of business
till noon, and then with Mr. Coventry to the African House, and there fell
to my Lord Peterborough's accounts, and by and by to dinner, where
excellent discourse, Sir G. Carteret and others of the African Company
with us, and then up to the accounts again, which were by and by done, and
then I straight home, my head in great pain, and drowsy, so after doing a
little business at the office I wrote to my father about sending him the
mastiff was given me yesterday. I home and by daylight to bed about 6
o'clock and fell to sleep, wakened about 12 when my wife came to bed, and
then to sleep again and so till morning, and then:

19th. Up in good order in my head again and shaved myself, and then to
the office, whither Mr. Cutler came, and walked and talked with me a great
while; and then to the 'Change together; and it being early, did tell me
several excellent examples of men raised upon the 'Change by their great
diligence and saving; as also his owne fortune, and how credit grew upon
him; that when he was not really worth L1100, he had credit for L100,000
of Sir W. Rider how he rose; and others. By and by joyned with us Sir
John Bankes; who told us several passages of the East India Company; and
how in his very case, when there was due to him and Alderman Mico L64,000
from the Dutch for injury done to them in the East Indys, Oliver presently
after the peace, they delaying to pay them the money, sent them word, that
if they did not pay them by such a day, he would grant letters of mark to
those merchants against them; by which they were so fearful of him, they
did presently pay the money every farthing. By and by, the 'Change
filling, I did many businesses, and about 2 o'clock went off with my uncle
Wight to his house, thence by appointment we took our wives (they by coach
with Mr. Mawes) and we on foot to Mr. Jaggard, a salter, in Thames Street,
for whom I did a courtesy among the poor victuallers, his wife, whom long
ago I had seen, being daughter to old Day, my uncle Wight's master, is a
very plain woman, but pretty children they have. They live methought at
first in but a plain way, but afterward I saw their dinner, all fish,
brought in very neatly, but the company being but bad I had no great
pleasure in it. After dinner I to the office, where we should have met
upon business extraordinary, but business not coming we broke up, and I
thither again and took my wife; and taking a coach, went to visit my Ladys
Jemimah and Paulina Montagu, and Mrs. Elizabeth Dickering, whom we find at
their father's new house

[The Earl of Sandwich had just moved to a house in Lincoln's Inn
Fields. Elizabeth Dickering, who afterwards married John Creed, was
niece to Lord Sandwich.]

in Lincolne's Inn Fields; but the house all in dirt. They received us
well enough; but I did not endeavour to carry myself over familiarly with
them; and so after a little stay, there coming in presently after us my
Lady Aberguenny and other ladies, we back again by coach, and visited, my
wife did, my she cozen Scott, who is very ill still, and thence to
Jaggard's again, where a very good supper and great store of plate; and
above all after supper Mrs. Jaggard did at my entreaty play on the Vyall,
but so well as I did not think any woman in England could and but few
Maisters, I must confess it did mightily surprise me, though I knew
heretofore that she could play, but little thought so well. After her I
set Maes to singing, but he did it so like a coxcomb that I was sick of
him. About 11 at night I carried my aunt home by coach, and then home
myself, having set my wife down at home by the way. My aunt tells me they
are counted very rich people, worth at least 10 or L12,000, and their
country house all the yeare long and all things liveable, which mightily
surprises me to think for how poore a man I took him when I did him the
courtesy at our office. So after prayers to bed, pleased at nothing all
the day but Mrs. Jaggard playing on the Vyall, and that was enough to make
me bear with all the rest that did not content me.

20th. Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and at noon to
the 'Change with Mr. Coventry and thence home to dinner, after dinner by a
gaily down to Woolwich, where with Mr. Falconer, and then at the other
yard doing some business to my content, and so walked to Greenwich, it
being a very fine evening and brought right home with me by water, and so
to my office, where late doing business, and then home to supper and to
bed.

21st. (Lord's day). Up, and having many businesses at the office to-day I
spent all the morning there drawing up a letter to Mr. Coventry about
preserving of masts, being collections of my own, and at noon home to
dinner, whither my brother Tom comes, and after dinner I took him up and
read my letter lately of discontent to my father, and he is seemingly
pleased at it, and cries out of my sister's ill nature and lazy life
there. He being gone I to my office again, and there made an end of my
morning's work, and then, after reading my vows of course, home and back
again with Mr. Maes and walked with him talking of his business in the
garden, and he being gone my wife and I walked a turn or two also, and
then my uncle Wight fetching of us, she and I to his house to supper, and
by the way calling on Sir G. Carteret to desire his consent to my bringing
Maes to him, which he agreed to. So I to my uncle's, but staid a great
while vexed both of us for Maes not coming in, and soon he came, and I
with him from supper to Sir G. Carteret, and there did largely discourse
of the business, and I believe he may expect as much favour as he can do
him, though I fear that will not be much. So back, and after sitting
there a good while, we home, and going my wife told me how my uncle when
he had her alone did tell her that he did love her as well as ever he did,
though he did not find it convenient to show it publicly for reasons on
both sides, seeming to mean as well to prevent my jealousy as his wife's,
but I am apt to think that he do mean us well, and to give us something if
he should die without children. So home to prayers and to bed. My wife
called up the people to washing by four o'clock in the morning; and our
little girl Susan is a most admirable Slut and pleases us mightily, doing
more service than both the others and deserves wages better.

22nd. Up and shaved myself, and then my wife and I by coach out, and I
set her down by her father's, being vexed in my mind and angry with her
for the ill-favoured place, among or near the whore houses, that she is
forced to come to him. So left her there, and I to Sir Th. Warwick's but
did not speak with him. Thence to take a turn in St. James's Park, and
meeting with Anth. Joyce walked with him a turn in the Pell Mell and so
parted, he St. James's ward and I out to Whitehall ward, and so to a
picture-sellers by the Half Moone in the street over against the Exchange,
and there looked over the maps of several cities and did buy two books of
cities stitched together cost me 9s. 6d., and when I came home thought of
my vowe, and paid 5s. into my poor box for it, hoping in God that I shall
forfeit no more in that kind. Thence, meeting Mr. Moore, and to the
Exchange and there found my wife at pretty Doll's, and thence by coach set
her at my uncle Wight's, to go with my aunt to market once more against
Lent, and I to the Coffee-house, and thence to the 'Change, my chief
business being to enquire about the manner of other countries keeping of
their masts wet or dry, and got good advice about it, and so home, and
alone ate a bad, cold dinner, my people being at their washing all day,
and so to the office and all the afternoon upon my letter to Mr. Coventry
about keeping of masts, and ended it very well at night and wrote it fair
over. This evening came Mr. Alsopp the King's brewer, with whom I spent
an houre talking and bewailing the posture of things at present; the King
led away by half-a-dozen men, that none of his serious servants and
friends can come at him. These are Lauderdale, Buckingham, Hamilton,
Fitz-Harding (to whom he hath, it seems, given L2,000 per annum in the
best part of the King's estate); and that that the old Duke of Buckingham
could never get of the King. Progers is another, and Sir H. Bennett. He
loves not the Queen at all, but is rather sullen to her; and she, by all
reports, incapable of children. He is so fond of the Duke of Monmouth,
that every body admires it; and he says the Duke hath said, that he would
be the death of any man that says the King was not married to his mother:
though Alsopp says, it is well known that she was a common whore before
the King lay with her. But it seems, he says, that the King is mighty
kind to these his bastard children; and at this day will go at midnight to
my Lady Castlemaine's nurses, and take the child and dance it in his arms:
that he is not likely to have his tables up again in his house,--[The
tables at which the king dined in public.-B.]--for the crew that are about
him will not have him come to common view again, but keep him obscurely
among themselves. He hath this night, it seems, ordered that the Hall
(which there is a ball to be in to-night before the King) be guarded, as
the Queen-Mother's is, by his Horse Guards; whereas heretofore they were
by the Lord Chamberlain or Steward, and their people. But it is feared
they will reduce all to the soldiery, and all other places taken away; and
what is worst of all, that he will alter the present militia, and bring
all to a flying army. That my Lord Lauderdale, being Middleton's enemy,
and one that scorns the Chancellor even to open affronts before the King,
hath got the whole power of Scotland into his hand; whereas the other day
he was in a fair way to have had his whole estate, and honour, and life,
voted away from him. That the King hath done himself all imaginable wrong
in the business of my Lord Antrim, in Ireland; who, though he was the head
of rebels, yet he by his letter owns to have acted by his father's and
mother's, and his commissions; but it seems the truth is, he hath obliged
himself, upon the clearing of his estate, to settle it upon a daughter of
the Queene-Mother's (by my Lord Germin, I suppose,) in marriage, be it to
whom the Queene pleases; which is a sad story. It seems a daughter of the
Duke of Lenox's was, by force, going to be married the other day at
Somerset House, to Harry Germin; but she got away and run to the King, and
he says he will protect her. She is, it seems, very near akin to the King:
Such mad doings there are every day among them! The rape upon a woman at
Turnstile the other day, her husband being bound in his shirt, they both
being in bed together, it being night, by two Frenchmen, who did not only
lye with her but abused her with a linke, is hushed up for L300, being the
Queen Mother's servants. There was a French book in verse, the other day,
translated and presented to the Duke of Monmouth in such a high stile,
that the Duke of York, he tells me, was mightily offended at it. The Duke
of Monmouth's mother's brother hath a place at Court; and being a Welchman
(I think he told me) will talk very broad of the King's being married to
his sister. The King did the other day, at the Council, commit my Lord
Digby's' chaplin, and steward, and another servant, who went upon the
process begun there against their lord, to swear that they saw him at
church, end receive the Sacrament as a Protestant, (which, the judges
said, was sufficient to prove him such in the eye of the law); the King, I
say, did commit them all to the Gate-house, notwithstanding their pleading
their dependance upon him, and the faith they owed him as their lord,
whose bread they eat. And that the King should say, that he would soon
see whether he was King, or Digby. That the Queene-Mother hath outrun
herself in her expences, and is now come to pay very ill, or run in debt;
the money being spent that she received for leases. He believes there is
not any money laid up in bank, as I told him some did hope; but he says,
from the best informers he can assure me there is no such thing, nor any
body that should look after such a thing; and that there is not now above
L80,000 of the Dunkirke money left in stock. That Oliver in the year when
he spent L1,400,000 in the Navy, did spend in the whole expence of the
kingdom L2,600,000. That all the Court are mad for a Dutch war; but both
he and I did concur, that it was a thing rather to be dreaded than hoped
for; unless by the French King's falling upon Flanders, they and the Dutch
should be divided. That our Embassador had, it is true, an audience; but
in the most dishonourable way that could be; for the Princes of the Blood
(though invited by our Embassador, which was the greatest absurdity that
ever Embassador committed these 400 years) were not there; and so were not
said to give place to our King's Embassador. And that our King did openly
say, the other day in the Privy Chamber, that he would not be hectored out
of his right and preeminencys by the King of France, as great as he was.
That the Pope is glad to yield to a peace with the French (as the
newes-book says), upon the basest terms that ever was. That the talke
which these people about our King, that I named before, have, is to tell
him how neither privilege of Parliament nor City is any thing; but his
will is all, and ought to be so: and their discourse, it seems, when they
are alone, is so base and sordid, that it makes the eares of the very
gentlemen of the back-stairs (I think he called them) to tingle to hear it
spoke in the King's hearing; and that must be very bad indeed. That my
Lord Digby did send to Lisbon a couple of priests, to search out what they
could against the Chancellor concerning the match, as to the point of his
knowing before-hand that the Queene was not capable of bearing children;
and that something was given her to make her so. But as private as they
were, when they came thither they were clapped up prisoners. That my Lord
Digby endeavours what he can to bring the business into the House of
Commons, hoping there to master the Chancellor, there being many enemies
of his there; but I hope the contrary. That whereas the late King did
mortgage 'Clarendon' to somebody for L20,000, and this to have given it to
the Duke of Albemarle, and he sold it to my Lord Chancellor, whose title
of Earldome is fetched from thence; the King hath this day sent his order
to the Privy Seale for the payment of this L20,000 to my Lord Chancellor,
to clear the mortgage! Ireland in a very distracted condition about the
hard usage which the Protestants meet with, and the too good which the
Catholiques. And from altogether, God knows my heart, I expect nothing
but ruine can follow, unless things are better ordered in a little time.
He being gone my wife came and told me how kind my uncle Wight had been to
her to-day, and that though she says that all his kindness comes from
respect to her she discovers nothing but great civility from him, yet but
what she says he otherwise will tell me, but to-day he told her plainly
that had she a child it should be his heir, and that should I or she want
he would be a good friend to us, and did give my wife instructions to
consent to all his wife says at any time, she being a pettish woman, which
argues a design I think he has of keeping us in with his wife in order to
our good sure, and he declaring her jealous of him that so he dares not
come to see my wife as otherwise he would do and will endeavour to do. It
looks strange putting all together, but yet I am in hopes he means well.
My aunt also is mighty open to my wife and tells her mighty plain how her
husband did intend to double her portion to her at his death as a
jointure. That he will give presently L100 to her niece Mary and a good
legacy at his death, and it seems did as much to the other sister, which
vexed [me] to think that he should bestow so much upon his wife's friends
daily as he do, but it cannot be helped for the time past, and I will
endeavour to remedy it for the time to come. After all this discourse
with my wife at my office alone, she home to see how the wash goes on and
I to make an end of my work, and so home to supper and to bed.

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