Friday 21 August 1663

Up betimes and among my joyners, and to my office, where the joyners are also laying mouldings in the inside of my closet.

Then abroad and by water to White Hall, and there got Sir G. Carteret to sign me my last quarter’s bills for my wages, and meeting with Mr. Creed he told me how my Lord Teviott hath received another attaque from Guyland at Tangier with 10,000 men, and at last, as is said, is come, after a personal treaty with him, to a good understanding and peace with him.

Thence to my brother’s, and there told him how my girl has served us which he sent me, and directed him to get my clothes again, and get the girl whipped.

So to other places by the way about small businesses, and so home, and after looking over all my workmen, I went by water and land to Deptford, and there found by appointment Sir W. Batten, but he was got to Mr. Waith’s to dinner, where I dined with him, a good dinner and good discourse, and his wife, I believe, a good woman. We fell in discourse of Captain Cocke, and how his lady has lost all her fine linen almost, but besides that they say she gives out she had 3000l. worth of linen, which we all laugh at, and Sir W. Batten (who I perceive is not so fond of the Captain as he used to be, and less of her, from her slight receiving of him and his lady it seems once) told me how he should say that he see he must spend 700l. per ann. get it how he could, which was a high speech, and by all men’s discover, his estate not good enough to spend so much.

After dinner altered our design to go to Woolwich, and put it off to to-morrow morning, and so went all to Greenwich (Mrs. Waith excepted, who went thither, but not to the same house with us, but to her father’s, that lives there), to the musique-house, where we had paltry musique, till the master organist came, whom by discourse I afterwards knew, having employed him for my Lord Sandwich, to prick out something (his name Arundell), and he did give me a fine voluntary or two, and so home by water, and at home I find my girl that run away brought by a bedel of St. Bride’s Parish, and stripped her and sent her away, and a newe one come, of Griffin’s helping to, which I think will prove a pretty girl. Her name, Susan, and so to supper after having this evening paid Mr. Hunt 3l. for my viall (besides the carving which I paid this day 10s. for to the carver), and he tells me that I may, without flattery, say, I have as good a Theorbo viall and viallin as is in England. So to bed.


34 Annotations

First Reading

versanum poetam  •  Link

Just did not like the delousing "...home by water, and at home I find my girl that run away brought by a bedel of St. Bride’s Parish, and stripped her and sent her away, ..." just scared of all those new fangled tools.

aqua  •  Link

"...Thence to my brother’s, and there told him how my girl has served us which he sent me, and directed him to get my clothes again, and get the girl whipped..." but not branded just scared, life of a orphan be 'orrible.

ellen  •  Link

I think I recall from my Sunday school lessons that Jesus said to be kind to children. When it comes to getting his money's worth Sam can be mean.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

While Sam is hard, the girl is probably not that young and she certainly is a thief. He could easily have had her arrested and sent off to hard labor somewhere or prison and probably feels a whipping is a relatively mild but necessary punishment.

Gee, Sam by your own Bible, what is the punishment for fornication and coveting thy neighbor carpenter's wife?

From Heaven...

"Yes, but sir...The child had no money to put in a poor box." shrewd look...

Heh. "Look how I put that fellow down, Bess. Served him rightly, impudent rogue."

"What did the man mean, 'fornication and coveting thy neighbor carpenter's wife', Sam'l?"

Ummn...

***

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"Brothers, I have the way to beat these hated infidels and regain Tangier! Let us strap these bottles of flamming and explosive liquids to ourselves and charge their lines, some of us pretending to be friendly traders and the like. God will reward us our sacrifice!"

"My God, you're crazy, Omar!" "He's not right in the head, my brother." "What kind of nonsense is this?!" "What, are we living in the seventh century, not the seventeenth?...Get a grip, man." "Heck, the Brit soldiers are good trade."

"My son." the local iman shakes head. "It's only a little town. God knows, it's not worth dying for. What's this?" Takes note from passing messenger. "Oh, awful."

"Iman?"

"Those Europeans have passed new laws against Jews. What a horrible thing to to do to people of our common Book. Thank God our Empire is famous for protecting them and other victims of such fanaticism."

Bullus Hutton  •  Link

So Jinny got hip
And took a wee trip
But Sammy got pipped
And so had her whipped
I'm so glad to see
That she managed to get free
But I'm also quite sad
That our Sam is so bad
And with Versanum I agree
That our naughty Sam Pee
Is not quite turning out
As I hoped he would be.

(I'm glad to be back,
I haven't been since
That these pages were filled
With our wonderful Vince!)

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Far From Heaven...Seething Lane in fact...

"So, Sir Will." Pepys addresses Batten. "You and Commissioner Pett seem a bit at...Odds. These days."

"Ah, the man is beneath my contempt, Pepys. Using us vilely and spreading the most horrible lies about my wife..." Batten waves a furious hand. "But I have taken proper steps to quench such talk."

***
The garden of the Naval complex.

"I'll speak to William, Mingo. He'll not sell you off to America."

"It's for the best. I must go, my Lady. I and my child are no longer safe here and Sir William has promised to send us off together."

"Oh, Mingo. No one has understood me as you have. Will there never be a place for us?"

"Perhaps, one day, my dear Lady. A place and a time where people will no longer feel free to hideously torture and set me aflame for such things but merely give cold stares and say harsh things behind one's back." Mingo smiles wanly.

"That would be an improvement." Lady Batten nods thoughtfully.

dirk  •  Link

More on Tangiers

Letter from Mr Joseph Williamson to Lane, written from Whitehall [?], dated 22 August 1663:

"The last accounts from Tangier give assurance that a Peace is concluded, or nearly concluded, with Gaylen. British trade in the Mediterranean flourishes; the Dutch, is proportionally impaired."

Source:
The Carte papers, Bodleian Library
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…

Conrad  •  Link

Jinny was stripped of her new clothes surely, but I wonder did she get her old lousy clothes back, surely she would not have been left to go abroad naked, maybe she had undies,but I doubt it. I would also like to know what 'Goody' said or did on the way to the bakehouse, before declaring the young girl a thief. Bullus not to worry about Vince not being around, I believe he went to water & still flows through these pages on a daily basis!

TerryF  •  Link

"the master organist came, whom by discourse I afterwards knew, having employed him for my Lord Sandwich, to prick out something (his name Arundell)"

This hire had to be pre-1/1/1660, and Pepys employed him for Sir Edward Mountagu, since Arundell appears nowhere else in the Diary.

----

Bullus, welcome back! Vincent's still here, dissolved into several elements - water, fire, poetry (paper), &c., even before Pepys grilled his Cartesian brother John about Aristotle's four and their properties.

TerryF  •  Link

Bullus, BTW, nice verse.

Mary  •  Link

"thence to my brother's"

Poor old Tom, he can't do anything right, can he? Picked the wrong parish girl, can't run a successful business, can't get himself a wife. He'd better go and eat worms.

Miss Ann fr Home  •  Link

Welcome back Bullus; and well said Mary. I'm beginning to take an unnatural interest in "Poor Tom", something about the underdog makes me want him to do well, notwithstanding Sam's criticisms ... can't wait to see how he progresses through life.

"I have as good a Theorbo viall and viallin as is in England" - what? No "greatest ever" or somesuch statement, Sam you leave me stumped!

Australian Susan  •  Link

How has Copt Cocke's wife lost all her fine linen? And presumably 3000 pound's worth of linen, whilst too much for the Cocke's to have been likely to have owned was not thought to be too outrageous a sum, but it seems mind-boggling to me. This would have included all sheets, shirts, collars, neckerchiefs, napkins, nightwear, but how much would a normal household's linen have been worth? I know Sam reckons it in with his wealth sometimes when he is working out how much he is worth. Although people in those days had table napkins (you sat at table with your napkin draped over your left arm, not in the lap as the polite way is to day) they did not have table cloths. Carpets were sometimes put on tables, when they were not being used to eat off.

Mary  •  Link

Fine linen.

The value of linen might be seriously boosted by the existence of fine lace edgings to gorgets, kerchiefs etc. but, as AS notes, £3000-worth seems an enormous estimate of personal and household linen.

Bradford  •  Link

The Imelda Marcos Syndrome, transposed, perhaps.
Thanks, Bullus, for taking up the Muse while Jeannine's is on hiatus. (That means I don't have to try to fill her shoes.)
Like you, Miss Ann, I feel for Tom being given the "Why can't you be more like your [successful, well-off, getting-laid] brother?"
I never said that.

JWB  •  Link

Jinny & Susan et al:
Some notes from JSGordon's"An Enpire of Wealth":
1)Br. population grew from 3m in 1500 to ~ 5m in 1650.
2)Enclosure from 1530 to 1630 sent about 1/2 country folk from tenancies
3)Influx of Ag & AU from Spanish Am. caused rapid inflation.
4)London population was ~ 120k in 1550 , and rose to ~350k in 1650.

The Medieval solution for too many mouths, as per "Hansel & Gretal, was infanticide. 17th century's solution of discipline & service has some appeal. Sure beats many 20/1 century answers, reverting to variants of that Dark Age solution.

aqua  •  Link

Bullus welcome back, great piece, nice to hear thy dulcet tones.
According to Christopher Hill, the price of wheat be rising, and real wages be falling, this last three years.
Cattle [from Eire] and the import of Wheat was banned, England has more land under the Ox, the farming of the commons by the big boys and use of clover, foods be improving. The diet, larger variety of foods have increased the brains of those that can afford the luxury foods, of course the poor be shut out and stay undersized.
Interest rates be good by Law 6% but many got more depending on the risk,
25% of the populus be in service, 25% be paupers,and another 25% be labouring [some be fixing Sams floors] the lucky ones have nice tux and get to ride in carriages, whipping up the horses while the rest, better get out of the way.
re: Young Jinny, if she be under the bedle, would be under the whip to get a position in suitable house as a chamber pot emptier, [Chamber mayde]
The mite be one, that has like many fallen on hard times, parents that died off from those chest hacking diseases and does not have the training to survive. Of course she has been taught rote, the catechism of not to steal thy life, wife, brain, or envy the rich, and honor thy betters spiritual and temporal.
This be no Nelly that can earn a few bob, temping stage door Johnies with some lemons.
She may be a thief [by default] but my guess, she was scared out of her gourd, being undressed, by whom there be only the Mistress, all the other staff be off to other positions,was Sam helping, hope not, there be no under clothing, just a fancy sackcloth like garment. It appears that many who read these pages have never the suffered the indignity of being stripped by strangers, pored over, no little paper cloth to hide thy dignity.
Most Boys be proud to prance but girls have a natural inclination to have privacy. She at the first oppotunity ran, just wanted to find a safe haven [ for what it be worth].

celtcahill  •  Link

There was no recognized childhood for most children in those days. Visitors to America were a little shocked to see children at the table, read to at bedtime &c. Sam's reasonable in his background - a little soft for not hauling her off to the courts.

A. Hamilton  •  Link

Jinny's dilemma

How to pay for her keep and rags. Some years later a Mr. Swift of Dublin gave some thought to this problem, and here's what he came up with:

"I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable commodity; and even when they come to this age they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."

Nix  •  Link

"stripped her and sent her away" --

HIGGINS [storming on] Take all her clothes off and burn them.
Ring up Whiteley or somebody for new ones. Wrap her up in brown
paper till they come.

LIZA. You're no gentleman, you're not, to talk of such things.
I'm a good girl, I am; and I know what the like of you are, I do.

HIGGINS. We want none of your Lisson Grove prudery here, young
woman. You've got to learn to behave like a duchess. Take her
away, Mrs. Pearce. If she gives you any trouble wallop her.

LIZA [springing up and running between Pickering and Mrs. Pearce
for protection] No! I'll call the police, I will.

MRS. PEARCE. But I've no place to put her.

HIGGINS. Put her in the dustbin.

LIZA. Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo!

PICKERING. Oh come, Higgins! be reasonable.

MRS. PEARCE [resolutely] You must be reasonable, Mr. Higgins:
really you must. You can't walk over everybody like this.

Higgins, thus scolded, subsides. The hurricane is succeeded by a
zephyr of amiable surprise.

HIGGINS [with professional exquisiteness of modulation] I walk
over everybody! My dear Mrs. Pearce, my dear Pickering, I never
had the slightest intention of walking over anyone. All I propose
is that we should be kind to this poor girl. We must help her to
prepare and fit herself for her new station in life. If I did not
express myself clearly it was because I did not wish to hurt her
delicacy, or yours.

Liza, reassured, steals back to her chair.

http://www.knowledgerush.com/gute…

TerryF  •  Link

Nix, brilliant!

Australian Susan  •  Link

I recently read a late nineteenth century diary kept by a station wife far outside Normanton (very, very remote North Queensland). One incident she recorded was that a man from the town rode out to their station [ranch for Americans] and said he wanted a little native girl for a servant for a woman in the town. He knew that there was a settlement near the station. The diarist directed the man to the settlement and he then rode back to the station having removed by force a child of about 10 whom he thought was pretty. The diarist then records (with amusement!) how difficult it was for the man to get the girl into a dress and then get her back to Normanton - she apparently escaped and ran back twice and he had to hit her several times to make her behave. The diarist records that the girl did not know how much better a life she would have in a house as a servant [slave]. And this is just a hundred years ago. Quite appalling.

Patricia  •  Link

Yes and amen to all the above; and I wonder how many slaps Mrs. P administered to the poor girl if she winced, struggled, or cried out while being deloused.

Michael Robinson  •  Link

get my clothes again, and get the girl whipped.

'Tis sad to observe that in much of the world to day this situation, the girl just not appreciating how well she was being treated and the great opportunities in front of her, and Pepys' behavior at the "disappointment," would be well within the bounds of "normal" and yet more dismal that the latter day Pepys would be accurate.

Jon-o  •  Link

I wonder what they mean by a 'theorbo viall'? I've never heard the two terms combined like that before, though I theorbo as an adjective isn't too rare describing lutes - theorbo-lute, or liuto atiorbato, in italian. Maybe this is an extra-large viol? Perhaps a 7-string gamba, as opposed to the 6-string versions that would have been more common at the time?

dirk  •  Link

theorbo viall

Jon-o, I don't see the connection either -- unless we should read a comma between these two words. Remember the punctuation in Sam's diary is largely the editors'...

peace  •  Link

"She may be a thief [by default] but my guess, she was scared out of her gourd, being undressed, by whom there be only the Mistress, all the other staff be off to other positions,was Sam helping, hope not, there be no under clothing, just a fancy sackcloth like garment. It appears that many who read these pages have never the suffered the indignity of being stripped by strangers, pored over, no little paper cloth to hide thy dignity.
Most Boys be proud to prance but girls have a natural inclination to have privacy. She at the first oppotunity ran, just wanted to find a safe haven [ for what it be worth]."

extremely insightful! i continue to enjoy and really, find amazement at the insightful comments here, many by aqua / vince / et alles

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"my Lord Teviott hath received another attaque from Guyland at Tangier with 10,000 men"

Creed [or his informants] greatly exaggerated the Moors' numbers. The treaty was a six months' truce arranged on 31 August: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… (Per L&M footnote)

Terry Foreman  •  Link

" to the musique-house, where we had paltry musique, till the master organist came"

The Musique-house may well have been the King's Head, Greenwich. See http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… (Per L&M footnote)

Beginning in 1649 "the Puritans removed organs from places of worship (so that in 1660 there were more in taverns than in churches) and closed the playhouses. More than 100 years later Horace Walpole, the aristocratic author of Anecdotes of Painting in England (who, like a good eighteenth-century Whig, slept with a copy of Charles I's death warrant above his bed), commented that `the arts were, in a manner, expelled with the royal family from Britain'. " http://www.nytimes.com/books/firs…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Capt. George Cocke's London home was in the parish of St. Peter-le-Poer and was taxed on 10 hearths, and he possessed a large tanning works in Limerick, and held the office of searcher of the port of Newcastle. The Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa was created 1660, and re-founded in 1663, by Prince Rupert and James, Duke of York, to meet the colonists’ labor needs. Charles II encouraged the expansion of the slave trade, by granting a charter, and investing private funds. According to the Duke of York's secretary, Coventry, in 1663, George Cocke was one of the main organizers.
http://www.itzcaribbean.com/carib…

The man was fabulously wealthy, had many houses, and could have all the linens he wanted.

The guys are jealous!

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... got Sir G. Carteret to sign me my last quarter’s bills for my wages, ..." Another example of the Navy not paying salaries on the usual quarter days in March, June, September and December.

Louise Hudson  •  Link

£3,000 in 1663 would have an approximate standard of living value of about £414,000 in 2016. What household today would have £414,000 worth of linens?

The way Jinny was treated was the normal "foster care" system in London then. Orphans were little more than pests and were expected to earn their "keep." The mortality rate would be shocking to anyone today. They were certainly worth less than a few linens.

john  •  Link

"Up betimes and among my joyners": The relaying of the floors intrigues me. Were the old planks pulled up? Were they tongue and groove, or butt cut? Did they use wide or narrow planks (the latter considered more affluent)? Were they pegged or nailed down? The planks being of differing thicknesses would have required either planing or shimming to produce a flat surface. Pepys's wonderful descriptions never extended to construction.

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