Fudge was, in 1664, captain of a merchantman, engaged by Pepys to sail with provisions to Tangier, whom he found a slacker and prevaricator.
We do not know whether he was the same identified thus in the OED: "Captain Fudge, 'by some called 'Lying Fudge' (Letter of 1664, in Crouch *Posthuma Christiana* 1712, p. 87) was a real person (the surname is still common in Dorsett). The nautical phrase, 'You fudge it,' associated in 1700 with the name of that captain, prob. belongs to FUDGE v.1. In a dialogue of 1702, *The Present Condition of the English Navy*, one of the interlocutors is called 'Young Fudg of the Admiralty' perh. with allusion to the same verb. 1700 *Remarks on the Navy* in D'Israeli, *Cur. Lit., Neology* (1841), There was, sir, in our time one Captain Fudge,.who.always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies, so much that now aboard ship the sailors, when they hear a great lie told, cry out, 'You fudge it'. http://plateaupress.com.au/wfw/fudge.htm
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Fudge was, in 1664, captain of a merchantman, engaged by Pepys to sail with provisions to Tangier, whom he found a slacker and prevaricator.
We do not know whether he was the same identified thus in the OED: "Captain Fudge, 'by some called 'Lying Fudge' (Letter of 1664, in Crouch *Posthuma Christiana* 1712, p. 87) was a real person (the surname is still common in Dorsett). The nautical phrase, 'You fudge it,' associated in 1700 with the name of that captain, prob. belongs to FUDGE v.1. In a dialogue of 1702, *The Present Condition of the English Navy*, one of the interlocutors is called 'Young Fudg of the Admiralty' perh. with allusion to the same verb.
1700 *Remarks on the Navy* in D'Israeli, *Cur. Lit., Neology* (1841), There was, sir, in our time one Captain Fudge,.who.always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies, so much that now aboard ship the sailors, when they hear a great lie told, cry out, 'You fudge it'. http://plateaupress.com.au/wfw/fudge.htm