Thursday 30 August 1660

Annotations

• N Paul Brewster on Sun 31 Aug 2003, 01:00am

  Act of Indemnity … with the Act of Rate for Polemony, and for Judiciall proceedings
  There are 3 acts here. According to L&M:

• N Paul Brewster on Sun 31 Aug 2003, 01:04am

  Act of Rate for Polemony
  L&M spell it polemony. Base on the quotes in the OED the seems to be an alternate spelling of poll-money.

  Here’s the OED on poll-money:
  “Money levied, exacted, or paid, at a fixed rate per head for every person, or (quot. a1618) for every head of cattle; capitation; poll-tax.
  …
  [I don

• N Paul Brewster on Sun 31 Aug 2003, 01:15am

  !
  The exclamation point is a Gutenberg editorial addition. L&M and Wheatley use a simple period. As L&M point out “Punctuation is almost non-existent in the original since the marks could be confused with shorthand.” L&M note this passge with the following reminder, “Pepys had met with patches in Holland on 14 May 1660.”

• N vincent on Sun 31 Aug 2003, 03:37am

  “…poll-money: …” This tax I beleive was so popular that a certain nameless Prime(First) Minister Brought it back into circulation.
  John Evelyn did on Oct 6 1660 “I paiede the great Tax of Pole-mony, levied for the disbanding of the Army,’til now kept up; I paid as Esquire 10 pounds & 1s: for every Servant in my house &c:( SP: 10L(esq) and 30L (CoA)leaving 17s for ?, 6 servants I do believe so what is the 11s for ? [?Liz?])
  

• N chip on Sun 31 Aug 2003, 03:52am

  What was the motive of not having Elizabeth the godmother of the Pierce child? Is it political, deference to Jemimah, or a fear of responsibility? I guess the former. I found it curious to see this fad of the eye-patch make its way from the continent to England. Is time something we move through?

• N Mary on Sun 31 Aug 2003, 08:08am

  the patches

  are not eye-patches, but the black (occasionally red) patches cut from paper, cloth or even fine leather in the shape of stars, crescent moon, even a coach and six horses (quoted by Picard) that were stuck upon the face as ‘beauty spots’ and which remained in fashion for many years. They could, of course, have been put to practical use in covering a blemish but a significant part of their function was to emphasise the fashionable whiteness of a lady’ complexion.

• N J A Gioia on Sun 31 Aug 2003, 12:52pm

  patches and will

  a great-uncle of mine was attached to the u.s. embassy in rome during the first world war and told me that at parties there he noticed local society women had shaved off their eyebrows and replaced them with velvet patches; breathtaking decadence to a provincial lad from the states.

  and let us consider the young rogue will: could sam’s astonishing affluence since returning from sea, even the way he gets money in odd lots of cash from various sources, have corrupted the lad? is this why sam is showing such restraint, if not compassion, in punishing him?
  

• N Jenny Doughty on Sun 31 Aug 2003, 05:19pm

  A little later, the wearing of face patches seems to have acquired symbolic significance as well as being adornments: http://harvest.rutgers.edu/projects/spectator/text/june1711/no81.html

• N David A.Smith on Sun 31 Aug 2003, 10:05pm

  “he is the most cunning rogue that ever I met with”
  Regarding the lightfingered Will, I speculate that Sam wants to be completely sure and will fire him only when he catches Will red-handed.

• N Phil on Mon 1 Sep 2003, 09:46pm

  It would be worth posting information about the patches to the Patches background page so it doesn’t have to be posted next time they’re mentioned.

• N tamara on Tue 2 Sep 2003, 04:30pm

  My guess about the reason for discouraging Elizabeth from standing godmother would be the responsibility-and-expense issue—being a godparent used to be a much more serious job than it often is now, where not only were you expected to check up on the child’s spiritual progress, and probably fork over generous presents, but where you might very well be expected to step in if the child were orphaned or otherwise in trouble.