Wednesday 8 March 1664/65

Annotations

• N Terry Foreman on Sat 8 Mar 2008, 11:02pm

  “the buoy of the Nower” — i.e., Noure — at the mouth of the Thames estuary as shown in a chart Pepys commissioned

  “Charts [Thames Estuary & East Anglia] To the Right Worppll. the Master & Wardens of the Trinity House of Deptford Strond This Mapp is most humbly Dedicatd and Presented by Capt. G: Collins. [Inset] The River of Thames from London to the Buoy of the Noure.
  “Sold by Richd. Mount at the Postorn on Great Tower Hill London.
  “Engraved sea-chart. Two sheets conjoined 600 x 940mm. Restoration to binding folds, slight staining. Sea chart of the east coast of England from Dover to Spurn Head, orientated with north to the right, with an inset chart of the Thames. The dedication is on the sails of a man o’war, and the title of the inset is in a cartouche featuring Old Father Thames. Commisioned [sic] by Samuel Pepys when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, some of Collins’ charts were published for almost a century, from 1693 to 1792.” http://www.grosvenorprints.com/thames.htm

• N Terry Foreman on Sat 8 Mar 2008, 11:12pm

  “Then I to Gresham College, and there saw several pretty experiments,”

  Among today’s experiments, L&M name: “a flaming spirit of wine extinguished in the pneumatic engine [carrying on from last week], and tin filings cast over heated nitre.” The Royal Society seems to be into ‘materials testing’ and what we’d call chemical experimentation at the moment; however, the RS already is focused on the great problem of global navigation and, L&M note: “At this meeting Pepys was asked to enquire of Holmes about his use of pendulum-watches for determination of longitude.”

  Where has Holmes been that would make him a good source of longitude-measurement info? Hasn’t he been mainly close to the coast of Africa? But on 9 January 1664/65 — Pepys told us in the Diary —, Holmes was sent to the Tower in case he were needed to be turned over to the Dutch “for a sacrifice, as Sir W. Rawly [Raleigh] was.” http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1665/01/09/

• N Terry Foreman on Sat 8 Mar 2008, 11:14pm

  Erratum: Should have been “the determination of longitude.”

• N JWB on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 12:20am

  roundhouse & coach

  The coach was just off the quaterdeck, below the poop deck & occupied by the captain. Recall when Chas II returned, he took the coach (the term has certaining been devalued by airlines). Roundhouse cabins were also in the stern , just below the coach.

• N jeannine on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 12:22am

  “This morning is brought me to the office the sad newes of “The London,” in which Sir J. Lawson’s men were all bringing her from Chatham to the Hope, and thence he was to go to sea in her; but a little a’this side the buoy of the Nower, she suddenly blew up”

  How horrible-can anyone shed light on the details-it’s not in Sandwich’s journal. I am wondering what made it blow up.

• N JWB on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 01:15am

  “… with her round- house above water…”

  Here I think he’s calling the entire window-glazed aft section overhanging the stern, the roundhouse, which would include the coach.

• N CGS on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 03:12am

  A: how fortunate for Sandwich that Lawson wanted the bigger ship .
  B: a fully laden with kegs of gunpowder just one smoking tar that chucked his reefer from being seen by a watching Non com would be enough to set off the storm especially if the the ship was running into an obstacle and it made the ship jerk. [pure speculation, having seen similar stupidities when on watch]

  Such a young ship, barely broken in.

• N dirk on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 04:21am

  Diary of Ralph Josselin for 7 and 8 March 1665

  “7. my pump frozen. most persons fear ryes are even killed with cold. made a good end in Cousin Hurrils business blessed be god —- 8. a pretty snow.”
  

• N dirk on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 04:24am

  John Evelyn was there!

  His diary entry for tomorrow, 9 March

  “I went to receive the poore creatures that were saved out of the London fregat, blowne up by accident with above 200 men.”

  Cf. also Pedro’s annotation for 4 March:
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1665/03/04/#c206467
  

• N Mary on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 07:20am

  The Nower/Nour.

  This is The Nore in current parlance.

• N Pedro on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 09:09am

  “Where has Holmes been that would make him a good source of longitude-measurement info? Hasn’t he been mainly close to the coast of Africa?”

  Terry, on his first and second Guinea expeditions Holmes tested clocks for Huygens. Many were eagerly awaiting the outcome of the second trip.

  Seems a good enough excuse to give him a complete pardon!

• N Pedro on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 09:21am

  “Sir J. Lawson hath a great loss in this of so many good chosen men, and many relations among them.

  Family ties might assist a tarpaulin captain: when Lawson’s flagship the London was accidentally blown up in 1665, 21 crewmen of his “kindred and name” perished with her.

  This ability of tarpaulin officers to attract seamen was seen by some as an advantage over the gentlemen.

  “the most optimistic reports of successful recruitment, and in some cases genuine enthusiasm for the war, came from East Anglia and the North East, the areas closest to the theatre of war, with local men like Myngs, Lawson and other older officers finding little difficulty in attracting men.

  (Gentlemen and Tarpaulins by Davies.)
  

• N Robert Gertz on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 01:15pm

  I wonder about the woman… But it sounds as though it was expected to be a pleasant little journey, the sort of little excursion Sam might well have brought Bess or Mrs. Pierce along to enjoy and she likely was one of the wives.

  Still…

  Be interesting to see if Sam takes any interest in shipboard fire prevention next time he must board.

  “I assure you ladies…” Sam proudly to Bess and Mrs. Pierce as they make their way below decks, Bess eyeing Betsy with grin… “…that I am throughly familiar with this vessel. There isn’t a nook or cranny I’ve not made my way to. The Dutch spoils are just over in the hold.”

  “Awfully cramped here, Mr. Pepys.” Mrs. Pierce notes. “Whic way did you say was the way to the cargo hold?”

  “Uh…Here…Yes, this way…Oh, drat…” sets down suddenly dark lamp. He feels about…Ah, boxes…We’re in the cargo hold, no doubt.

  “Sam’l? Should we be lighting a lamp down here?” Bess asks. “There’s so many boxes crowded in here.”

  “There. What?” Sam looks up. Hmmn…Doesn’t quite look like the spoils…Seem to have taken a wrong turn. “Lets be off, ladies.”

  “What’s this?” Bess reads. “G-u-n…”

• N JWB on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 01:48pm

  “…80 pieces of brass ordnance.”
  Brass was expensive. Beginning mid 16th C. England increasingly resorted to cast iron ordinance. So much so that it became a major export, licensed by the Crown to keep out of hands of Spain. But then charcoal became increasingly expensive ‘til had to resort to Swedish imports. See Carlo Cipollo’s
  “Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000-1700” page 270 (+-2).
  http://books.google.com/books?id=rZw8jfX6mGsC&pg=PA269&lpg=PA269&dq=iron+ordinance
  

• N Terry Foreman on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 02:05pm

  The Nore (thanks, Mary: I’m an Outlander)

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nore

• N JWB on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 03:12pm

  “…80 pieces of brass ordnance.”

  From Herman’s “To Rule the Waves”: “The (cast iron pieces) were inferior to bronze, especially at the larger calibers…But they were a lot cheaper to make & easier to produce-less than a fifth of the cost of bronze.” That’s in the early stages when charcoal was still relatively cheap and resort to coal/coke had not yet been nessecitated.

• N JWB on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 05:58pm

  “… tin filings cast over heated nitre..”

  Smoke bomb!

• N language hat on Sun 9 Mar 2008, 10:21pm

  “About 24 [men] and a woman”

  What was a woman doing aboard a ship? I thought that sort of thing was verboten.

• N CGS on Mon 10 Mar 2008, 12:23am

  Women aboard a ship, Many a merchantman had female usually a wife of the Captain. I lost my g/g/grand parents around the Magellan straights area in the mid 1800’s, leaving a string of offspring to be misused by other relatives, ‘twas the tale that be told to me to explain the lack of silver spoons.It was only the lessers that had to forgoe the pleasures of life.
  note”…many relations among them…”

• N Australian Susan on Mon 10 Mar 2008, 12:54am

  If cast iron cannon were ill-made they were given to cracking and blowing up when fired - very dangerous. Brass did not do this. That’s at this time.

  And women n on board? I concluded they were wives having a short coastal sea trip. if they lived at Chatham, it was not a long overland journey to get back there from Cliffe (see map when you click on Hope in text), having had a jolly short sea voyage. well, in theory.

• N Michael Robinson on Mon 10 Mar 2008, 07:28am

  Brass/Bronze and cast iron cannon

  It was the superior quality and lighter weight of the English cast iron canon that made possible the increased firepower per ton of draft of English war ships in the seventeenth century and provided an advantage in a ‘fire fight’.
  see Rodger, ‘Command of the Ocean,’ 2004/5 pp. 224-5.

  In Pepys’ day, and to the early C 18th.founding methods changed little from those described by Biringuccio, ‘De la Pirotechnia,’ 1540. Cannon were cast hollow, rather than solid, a core was placed in the barrel mold to form the bore. (The core was removed and the bore then reamed to clean the casting and to make an approximation of caliber.) The moulds were placed and filled muzzle up which produced pressure differences in the molten metal particularly round the bore, creating flaws during the metals solidification that were, at the time, undetectable. These were flaws to which both cast iron and brass/bronze were subject. It is only because cast iron dissipates heat less effectively than brass/bronze was the failure rate in action greater, but cannon cast with either material could and did fail.

  see, Melvin H Jackson & Carl De Beer ‘Eighteenth Century Gunfounding: The Verbruggens at the Royal Brass Foundry’ Washington DC: Smithsonian, 1974. pp. 9-10, 71-4. (The work includes a discussion of international changes in gunfounding during the C 18th. and reproduces a splendid series of late C18th., watercolors)

• N Pedro on Mon 10 Mar 2008, 09:40pm

  “What was a woman doing aboard a ship? I thought that sort of thing was verboten.”

  Here is what NAM Rodger says in Command of the Oceans for around this period of time…

  Not everyone left their wives at home…it is difficult to estimate how many women were aboard when their presence was forbidden, but Sir John Mennes could hardly be literally correct to complain in 1666 that the ships were pestered with women “as many petticoats as breeches”. There were numerous orders to send women ashore which suggest that they often accompanied their men folk someway to sea.

  Teonge says…

  Hither many of our seamen’s wives follow their husbands, and several other young women accompany their sweethearts, and sing “Loathe to depart” in punch and brandy, so that our ship was that night well furnished, but ill-mannered, few of them being well able to keep watch had there been occasion. You would have wondered to see here a man and a women creep into a hammock, the women’s legs to the hams hanging over the sides or at the end of it. Another couple sleeping on a chest, others kissing and clipping, half drunk, half sober or rather half asleep, choosing rather (might they have been suffered) to go and die with them than stay and live without them.

  What proportion of men were married is difficult to say, though the explosion of the London in 1665 killed about 300 men and left 50 widows.

  SPOILER…

  Pepys collected stories, no doubt some of them true, of gentlemen officers taking their mistresses to sea, while HRH had forbidden Sir William Jennings to carry his wife in his frigate, she took passage upon a merchantman in the fleet, and he took every opportunity of making visits.

  ******************************

  One of the criticisms of the botched raid on Hispaniola in 1665, was that Venables spent three or four days in Penn’s flagship in the company of his wife, while more than 7000 of his men were living on the shore without tents but with a formidable enemy approaching.

• N Pedro on Mon 10 Mar 2008, 09:41pm

  botched raid on Hispaniola in 1665,”

  This should read 1655!

• N language hat on Tue 11 Mar 2008, 04:13pm

  Thanks, Pedro — a very informative comment!