Wednesday 19 December 1660

Annotations

• N Jenny Doughty on Sat 20 Dec 2003, 02:28am

  I suppose this glut of meat would be because so many cattle were slaughtered at this time of year.

• N Roger Arbor on Sat 20 Dec 2003, 07:05am

  One wonders why men such as Sir Denis Gauden continued to ‘whet the palms’ of Pepys and others in positions of authority, when for their trouble they received virtually nothing for supplying the fleet? Why on earth did they do it? Pride or simply hoping all would be well? Gauden and many like him became paupers simply because they trusted the State would, sooner or later, pay its debts.

• N Mary on Sat 20 Dec 2003, 07:53am

  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

  Gauden was not appointed sole victualler to the navy until this year, 1660. He may well, therefore, have every hope this Christmas that the contract is going to be valuable to him and so feel it well worth while to be generous with his Yule-tide gifts to Navy Office officials like Pepys. He cannot know that the government is going to fail to honour its debts to him for years to come.

• N Lawrence on Sat 20 Dec 2003, 09:22am

  The Government will financially ruin this Man in time, and our Sam will live with Will Hewer in Mr Gauden’s old House at clapham. Which is where Sam will spend His closing Years sorting His Library out with His Nephew John Jackson. The Library is kept at Magdalene College Cambridge. Well worth the visit.

• N Andrew Hamilton on Sat 20 Dec 2003, 02:15pm

  This night Mr. Gauden sent me a great chine of beef and half a dozen of tongues.

  Do we know enough of Pepys’s house and 17th century housekeeping to know or guess where he would have stored such a quantity of beef and tongues, and how long they would keep, or how they would be cooked, and by whom in his household?

• N Mary on Sat 20 Dec 2003, 06:00pm

  Beef and tongues

  The meat may not need to be kept all that long, as Christmas is coming. The tongues can be boiled, cooled and pressed and the beef will hang nicely until required.

• N Nigel Pond on Tue 23 Dec 2003, 06:12pm

  Beef etc

  I suspect that in Pepys time people were used to their meat being a little “gamey”…