Wednesday 23 April 1662

Annotations

• N dirk on Sat 23 Apr 2005, 11:14pm. Flag this

  “that my wife should come if any of our wives came”

  Finally we know why Elizabeth couldn’t come. May this put an end to speculations about Sam’s “evil” intentions… ;-)
  

• N dirk on Sat 23 Apr 2005, 11:17pm. Flag this

  “all the fleas came to him and not to me”

  Travelling must have been a real pleasure in those days…
  

• N Robert Gertz on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 12:49am. Flag this

  “my wife should come if any of our wives…”

  Clever dodge, Samuel! Good luck though keeping the redoubtable Lady Batten away…She’d probably come without Sir Will.

  “My Sir Will,

  No need for you to make this hard and thankless journey, we’ve got all details well in hand. (Especially no need to drag your good lady along over these terrible roads)

  Yours,

  The gang.

  Er, PS…Please inform Mrs. Pepys that you and your dear lady will definitely not be coming.”

• N daniel on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 01:18am. Flag this

  “…and house of the Clerkes, because that all the fleas came to him and not to me.”

  inside joke? Could someone explain this one?

• N The Mollusc on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 01:34am. Flag this

  Jokes die when dissected, but those fleas should be more attracted to the finer blood of the head of a clan, rather than the humble family-member beside him. Thus being flea-bitten can be given the cheery connotation that Dr Clarke has or aspires to that elevated status.

• N Vincent Bell on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 02:16am. Flag this

  “…because that all the fleas came to him and not to me.

• N Cumgranissalis on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 02:36am. Flag this

  fleas like rich nutrients and that is were they will decamp too.

• N Mary on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 09:01am. Flag this

  Now we understand the cause of Elizabeth’s discontent.

  She had undoubtedly heard (servants’ gossip?) that Lady Batten fully intended joining the expedition to Portsmouth. She will have found it difficult to believe Sam’s protestations that the lady was not going to be included in the party. Sam’s last-minute stratagem for putting the Battens off seems to have worked, but it strikes me as slightly risky ….. messages can miscarry.

• N Mary on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 09:07am. Flag this

  the forest.

  L&M notes that this was the Forest of Bere, which lay to the north and north-west of Havant. Perhaps the roads through the forest were poor, or maybe it had a bad reputation for footpads. The detour was clearly no short cut.

• N JWB on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 03:21pm. Flag this

  Forrest of Bere
  “The old A3 London Road that today passes Waterlooville was the only route through the forest from the coast to the South Downs. It was a rough muddy track notorious for highwaymen, so much so that coaches were provided with heavily armed guards. Documentary records suggest it was the worst managed Royal Forest in England”http://www.hants.org.uk/hollybank-woods/FOB.html
  

• N JWB on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 03:35pm. Flag this

  Flea attractants
  Lactic acid, a product of metabolism, along with CO2 attracts fleas. So the larger, more active person or the one with the higher metabolism rate will attract the more fleas. Lactic acid used today as the attractant to bug traps.

• N JWB on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 05:11pm. Flag this

  Feedback
  Thinking of Kreb’s Cycle and feedback loops(metabolism above), the number of Bere Forrest highwaymen must have been in direct proportion to the discount accepted on Portsmouth sailor’s tickets. The longer Admiralty waited to payoff the ships, the harder it would have been to get to Portsmouth to pay off the ships.

• N Glyn on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 05:24pm. Flag this

  A long while ago, someone speculated that perhaps Pepys’s blood group was Type A, not Type O, so was less attractive to fleas (all this is very speculative). And that may explain why Pepys will survive the Great Plague in 4 years’ time (and perhaps the Doctor will not).

  As to the joke, they decided that the Doctor must be the senior Clerk, because all the fleas preferred him, i.e. the Doctor is a “Clerk” by name, and Pepys is a “Clerk” in his job.

• N David A. Smith on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 05:39pm. Flag this

  “my oath, that my wife should come if any of our wives came”
  Robert, I don’t believe the sentence construction implies that Sam is the one trying to prevent Batten from bringing his wife.
  Rather, I think the group discussed it, and established a rule (possibly overruling Sam’s views), whereupon he said, “All right, I’ve told my wife she can’t come because no wives come, and if any do, then mine must.”
  If so, his phrase “which I did project to make good my oath” should be read as meaning “which I did understand and anticipate when I made my oath,” meaning that they did as he had in fact pledged they would.
  

• N dirk on Mon 25 Apr 2005, 12:01am. Flag this

  “that my wife should come …”

  David, personally I share your reading of the text here. To me it makes the most sense. And it’s also the simplest reading - and you’re aware of Occam’s razor…
  

• N Todd Bernhardt on Mon 25 Apr 2005, 01:50am. Flag this

  re: “that my wife should come…”

  I dunno, David and Dirk, I must say I side with Robert on the reading here. To paraphrase Sam in modern English, it says (IMO): “When we got there, we sent a messenger to Sir W. Batten, to keep him from coming. I suggested this with the ulterior motive of keeping me from having to live up to the oath I had made to Elizabeth — that she would be able to come if any of the wives came. I had heard that Lady Batten intended to come with her husband.”

  Now, this is not a direct “translation” — I’m filling in some things to make my point clearer — but this is how I read the sentence. FWIW.

  This way, not only does Sam get to have a boy’s (boys’?) week out, but he doesn’t have to deal with the Battens!

• N A. Hamilton on Mon 25 Apr 2005, 03:13am. Flag this

  “which I did project to make good my oath”

  Todd’s gloss seem right. Sam “projected”
  (proposed) sending a message to Sir W. Batten to stay away, and tells his diary he did so to keep faith with his “oath that my wife should come if any of our wives came.” But that doesn’t rule out David Smith’s suggestion that Sam’s “project” was accepted by the others because there was an understanding that
  NO wives were to come, or the associated implication that the Navy Office party thought Batten incapable of keeping his wife from accompanying him. A further inference: Pepys endeavors to show that, unlike Batten, he can manage his wife and prevent her from becoming a distraction from Navy business, but demands the same resolution from his fellow commissioners because he wants his wife and himself to be treated fairly and with respect.

• N language hat on Mon 25 Apr 2005, 03:29pm. Flag this

  I agree with David and Dirk.
  The other theory seems strained to me.

• N Clement on Mon 25 Apr 2005, 09:05pm. Flag this

  Voting with Todd B. and A.Hamilton here.
  I think Occam is cutting just as sharply from the other side of the razor, and read the “which” in “which I did project” to refer to the subject of the immediately preceding clause: “an express” (message) which was sent to Batten telling him to stay home.
  Why did Sam project that message? To make good his oath. It would have been inconvenient to send for Elizabeth if Lady Batten came, and it would have been guilt-producing to violate his oath. There, clear as mud.

• N David Quidnunc on Wed 27 Jul 2005, 04:29am. Flag this

  AND IN OTHER NEWS THIS DAY