In today's mailbag there was also one letter, packed with action and that would break our Venetian friend's heart if he knew. S.P. Dom. Car. II. 245 No. 200 in the State Paper's cryptic numbering, it's a "certificate" dated September 7 by a merchant, Henry Rowe, and officers of two ships, the Monmouth and the Princess.
It shows England to be so notoriously friendly to the Turks, that the ships of other nations hide in its convoys and pretend to be English when crossing the Med. But sometimes it doesn't work - true English blood just can't be faked, what. On September 3, the two English vessels took a Portuguese ship under their wing, "and lent the captain an ancient and vanes [English flags] and 6 men to answer the hail in English". They also "advis[ed] him to take his images and crosses from his stern, and paint it black to disguise it, but this he neglected to do".
And so five Turkish vessels showed up, the Portuguese captain and his men suddenly remembered all this stuff displayed on the stern, and panicked and started jumping out. Those left aboard ended up striking down their false flags and surrendering - quite possibly for a new career on the Sultan's galleys - while the two English captains hurriedly retrieved their men and the Turks advised them not to play these games.
This mess was apparently one too many for the Levant Company, which tomorrow (Sept. 8) will write a flurry of letters - also referencing what may have been another flap involving "the Leghorn vessel" - to its staff in Constantinople, Smyrna and Aleppo, on how "No foreign ship is in future to be taken under English protection, the small advantage of the duties [ah, so it wasn't free] not compensating the dangers".
And yes, Tonyel, there is absolutely a film script in there (or even several). Killing someone, as most of the literature on time machines invites you to do, has got to be the least interesting use to which you can put them.
In the same vein Piero also learned that Colbert has offered that France and England be exclusive trading partners ("That the trade of the two kingdoms shall be common and reciprocal, to the exclusion of every other nation, so that what is produced in France shall be transported by Englishmen only and that only Frenchmen shall have the exportation of goods from this country"), which seems just fanciful decoration for more practical proposals - such as, second bombshell, "the Most Christian [Louis XIV] offering to buy the fortress of Tanger for cash down". He reminds the Senate that "they [England] have begun the construction of a mole, at which they are at work incessantly, at an immense cost", to which Sam could attest. England's plan for Tangiers, he writes, is to make it a tollbooth for all ships entering the Mediterranean, similar to what the king of Denmark does for all traffic entering the Baltic through the Øresund, between Denmark and Sweden - ironically, at a price which has "caused some heart searching to the king here". If that's the plan, it looks nice on paper but our advice is - take the money! Whaddya think, Sam, good idea or not to sell Tangiers to the French?
Speaking of bags of money, our friend Piero Mocenigo, ambassador of Venice, had a bit of a bombshell to report yesterday.
Long story short: Piero, recently arrived in London, has been busy. His main job is to get Charles II to do his Christian duty and help liberate Candia (a Venetian colony in Crete) from its years-long siege by the Turks. Piero writes remarkably long and detailed cables, available at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…, and yesterday he's been particularly prolix (writing letters Nos. 338 to 340). Alas, on Candia he hasn't got much after three weeks of touring the grandees: "a ship (...) laden with salted meat", which "I have persuaded a rich merchant (...) of sending", is just about the only concrete result so far (this in No. 339). We'll keep a description of those efforts for another day; for now suffices to say that, as Sig. Mocenigo wearily concludes of the mercantile English, "all respect for religion is subordinated and they are moved solely by interests of state".
And now the bombshell: Like everyone else in London (including Sam), Sig. Mocenigo has been keenly monitoring Colbert's mysterious visit. "The ambassadors of Spain and Holland are closely watching every step and even gesture of the French ambassador", he writes (in letter No. 340). "It has been found that he has with him a great quantity of money, and although there is no certainty about the amount published, of 800,000 crowns, it must needs be considerable because the exchange of this mart for sending out money has fallen, and it will fall still further from the operation of the quantity of cash which has been brought in. This large capital is usually employed for the corruption of loyalty and to buy individuals, and it seemed that in large part it was to be distributed in continuing pensions to divers suitable persons whom the king of France tries to keep well disposed here to the interests of the Most Christian crown."
That's the headline: "France buys England". Yea, £200,000 would buy loyalties. From memory, it's around half of the State budget, and 50 times what Sandwich spent on his years-long embassy in Madrid. In another message on August 17 Piero had also noted that Colbert's digs in Leicester House are rented for £700, an extravagant amount which one would expect, for whatever it's good for, goes to the pockets of the Earl of Leicester. Louis XIV means business, does nothing by half, and is bulldozing his way into cash-strapped England, which struggles so much to pay for its excellent Navy and shipyards.
How many guards and how many carts to move 10,000/. from London to Portsmouth? Always a good question; imagine what one could do with those letters and a good time machine. We don't know in what coin the money will be delivered but, if we assume it's in the current (Charles II) coinage, this study (https://www.britnumsoc.org/public…), the first which Mr. Google proposes on the topic (and yes, it's from 1919) suggests that as of 1668 the most abundant was silver crowns, worth one-quarter of a pound. We also don't know how much the workers are paid but it seems a sensible denomination for a bulk payment - if still quite large, let's hope the taverns have plenty of change.
Quick check at https://coinparade.co.uk/crowns: the 1662 crown (and later issues) weighs 29.45 grams. So it's 1,178 kg. In, perhaps, around 200 bags of 5 kg each - our sturdy guards can haul heavier bags, and heavier bags are harder to steal, but more at risk of breaking open (whoops). Surely they're not hauled in carts. The loot could all sensibly fit in a few coaches, perhaps armored and surrounded by fierce musketeers, or camouflaged with peeling paint to look poor, with the guards dressed as ugly nuns. Either way, it seems a bit much for the highwaymen, who are many but seem to come in ones and twos rather than in big Robin Hood bands. Better to pick out the drunk yardmen in a few days.
Anyway, it's about time. Another quick check, of the State Papers, show the £10k first surface in the current volume as authorized back in March, and the wheels took six months to turn.
For several weeks now, the Gazette, at the end of page 2 where the good stuff often is, has printed an Advertisement from the Lord Commissioners of the Treasury, to invite "all Receivers and other Accountants", and all Collectors, to show up, on Tuesdays at 7 of the morning or on Thursdays at 3 of the afternoon, to account for the taxes they have Collected, or (for the Receivers), received from the Collectors. So far, so good, in a system where of course tax collection is outsourced to private gentlemen.
Except, the notices pertained to recovering, among many taxes, "the one Moneths Tax from the 29 of September 1660" and "from the First of July 1661". That's right, money collected as long as 8 years ago. Admittedly those were still unsettled years, but the Collectors were still "admonished (...) to take care forthwith to pay all such Moneys to the Receivers as they have in their hands", or else.
Now, Gazette No. 281, containing items dated through July 31, must be hitting the streets today, and the series comes to an end with this page 2 ad: "Whereas Advertisement hath been several times given to the Receivers of His Majesties' Money, that they should without delay pay into His Majesties' Exchequer all such Moneys as were remaining in their hand, and apply themselves with diligence to their respective Auditors", &c. &c. &c., "very many of them have neither done the one nor the other", and so the Treasury will be cracking down.
Thus is exposed one of the reasons why Sam can't pay the bills, apart from all the demands placed on the money pipe, and the Realm's sorry condition post-Fire/war/plague: The tax collectors have kept the loot for themselves, unmolested since the Restoration, to fund their coaches and manor houses. Sam would surely not have needed the Gazette to know this but might still have nodded at the display. He also thinks the lord Treasurers are unusually competent, for a Commission. So will they succeed? Why, perhaps the Treasury will seize some of those coaches and auction them cheap ...
And that's the status right now: It's all in the bulging saddlebags of things to negotiate with dear brother Charles II which Charles Colbert has brought to London. Is it such a tragedy? St. Albans isn't so sure, actually, as in his letter of July 15 he noted that "even when they [the French] shall execute fully the Treaty of Breda it will be very costly to us before we can be re-established, and after without much cost more, be not much the better for being re-established", in particular because the English planters have resettled all over the Caribbean. A possible solution, handed out by some unnamed French official and which St. Albans relays on July 28 in another memo to Arlington: "either a change for some of their islands for our part of St. Christopher's or the buying it with their money". The Most Christian not being above just paying his way out of problems, and Colbert having bigger fish to fry in London than cost estimates for jail food and a few thatched huts.
Things are never simple in the colonies, what with those hurricanoes, freewheeling governors and colonels building their own kingdomes, fractious planters, the constant threat of fevers and Indians (the latter often grown quite good at playing one colonial power against another), and the slow and complicated communication between the islands and with faraway Europe. This is all so impossible to manage, you have to wonder if these colonies will still be around in a century; and all this so the Pepys of the world can put sugar in their coffee.
Lambarte also remarked, in his letter to HM, that St. Christopher wasn't just some confetti but "once resettled (...) will put a check on all the French in America". Perhaps. The English are also not blameless; while all this aggravation is going on with the French, Charles II was coming close to firing Willoughby for letting his son, who had been appointed to run Suriname after it swung from Dutch to English rule, refuse to return it to the Dutch under the same treaty of Breda, then return it only after having trashed the place (he even burned a windmill, not a nice thing to do to the Dutch).
And so Charles took a new quill and wrote to Loouie, sometime in June (No. 1777 in the State Papers' colonial series). Ambassador St. Albans delivered the letter on June 30, and was told by the Most Christian himself that the Most Christian "did not use to break his word, and should less do it to the King [of England] than to anybody; that it was to be presumed that some mistake risen by the absence of La Barre, the Governor, is the cause of the delay". Isn't that cute. Why, the Most Christian was almost flustered at being so let down by his people.
But even so, there's still all these technical details, the cost estimates and all that. So, in a letter of July 15 to Arlington, St. Albans now relays from M. de Lionne - Loouis' foreign minister - "that the French King desires his Majesty [of England] not to send the new orders for restitution to M. De la Barre until M. Colbert has laid before his Majesty all that is necessary for the execution of the Treaty, otherwise it is feared that De la Barre might not execute even these last orders".
Louis XIV has some nerve! Yes he does, doesn't he. It comes with being the Sun King.
But the St. Christopher problem is more complicated than what Mr. Pocock has picked up in Yarmouth, and has already escalated, twice, to their Majesties' level. It's one of the main diplomatic actions right now, and worth elaborating upon. Just to skim the flood of ink and letters in the colonial archives (explore them at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…), Loouie did agree under the Treaty of Breda to return St. C as long ago as 1667, and on May 2 last, William Lord Willoughby, governor of Barbadoes and England's main man in the Caribbean, related in a formal protest that when the restitution order were served on M. le Chevalier De St. Laurence, French Governor of St. Christopher, "he refusing to take [them in hand, the order] was laid down before him on a chair". How rude.
On May 30 Willoughby attached to a report to Arlington, a memo from M. Lefebre De la Barre, French governor of Guyana, who (as summarized) had explained that "the English must first reimburse the price of the purchases of the French, as well as amelioration, as agreed at the English Court, besides the food of the [English] prisoners, which amounts to great sums", noting further that the houses "built by the French since the hurricane belong of right to them, and as to movables they also belong to the French by the right of war". And a further complication concerning slaves: "if the English demand those taken at St. Christopher's, the French have equal right to demand those taken at Cayenne and sold at Barbadoes, but if any difficulty arises about this article it can be settled by their masters in Europe."
On June 25 in another memo which (on June 28) a colonel Lambarte passed on to Charles II, De la Barre added "that he cannot put his Majesty of England or his Commissioners in possession of that part of St. Christopher's stipulated to be returned to the English unless all the articles of the Treaty concerning this country are at the same time executed", and added a few specifics to the horse-trading: "that restitution be made for things taken since the cessation of hostilities, vizt., 39 negroes [sic, sorry about that] and 3,000 florins in plate and moveables from Cayenne by Henry Willoughby; 12 negroes retained by the Governor of Montserrat ; eight negroes taken from Martinique; and a barque of the West India Company; and that reimbursement be made for the price of dwellings sold by the English to the French, with the ameliorations that have been made according to the estimation of Commissioners named on either side." So now experts have to be appointed to estimate costs, too.
Regarding the State Papers, first allow us to direct a Disapproving Frown at the University of London, which indeed seems to have seen fit to paywall a 150-year-old HMSO compilation of centuries-old government papers, now in PRO archives, that should be about as copyright-free as the Bible. Just to butter the toast on both sides, the website also sells advertising (one ad invites us to "discover the stocking evidence of Jesus' resurrection!")
But OK, they're not the fattest piece of toast around, at £35 their annual subscription is still cheaper than what many academic publishers want for a peek at a single article, and here are two Dry-Your-Tears caveats: First, some of the collections which the UoL toiled so hard to double-key-digitize are still free to access (the publick, in the form of the Arts and Humanities Council, having paid for it), including Pepys-years archives on Venice and the colonies that are rich in crunchy nuggets and not readily available elsewhere.
Second, there's a free Google Books version of the State Papers. It's a bit more awkward to use because each volume has to be fished out from their vast catalog, the scans cannot be cut-and-pasted, and lately there seems to be a bug that only makes them (at least in our case) readable in the Google Play Books application rather than straight on the website. But navigate all this and it works great and you can still get your fix - as a bonus, in a nice vintage font and with no scanning errors.
Today's dose includes letters in defense of the Dean of Chester, "attacked by the rage of calumny, by some mean spirits, as the dogs of Arcadia feared not to bark at the moon" - surely a quote deserving of reuse - and even a letter to Pepys, of the depressingly routine variety: Edward Byland "has done nothing in the musters", and (perhaps not unconnected) "wants a bill for his salary as deputy treasurer for 13 months". We can imagine Sam having a deep sigh at this one, and checking his minute watch - is it 4 o'clock yet?
The news of my being lost was very exaggerated. Truly I was on a secret Embassy to New Spain, occasioned by the Peace now ratified between the two Crowns and in parts whence sadly the Post hardly reaches. As you read this I should have taken passage back across the ocean Sea. Providence send that we should be spared by tempests and pyrates, and may God give me the strength to catch up with this huge bag of Gazettes and Papers.
Now, why did Williamson require all this research on the precedence of English vs. French kings and ambassadors? Of course who sits where matters a great deal to diplomats (just have a look at the group engravings from the recent G7 summit in Wales), and 'tis an Age when sea-captains risk starting the next war by shooting between each other's masts when they feel the other guy didn't lower his flag enough - why, 'tis not so long that the escorts of two Ambassadors slaughtered each other on the question of whose Excellency's coach should go first through a narrow street in Madrid (or was it Cracow, 'twas in the Gazette).
There is a lot to unpack in Dr. Jenkins' treatise, and the subtle implications which could be made from seating arrangements on the broader rights of all these intermarrying dynasties are beyond our immediate ability to puzzle, so we'll just remark on the context in which the doctor was sent to dust off his Albericus Gentilis. Monsieur Colbert is about to visit London, could this be part of the preparations? If so, how come the protocol needs to be researched, given all the routine, high-level contact between France and England? Are Charles and Louis planning a summit?
Interesting also that the Venetians are mentioned at length. Lodged as they are between the French and the Spaniards (in Naples), it's understandable that they won't pick sides in such quarrels, but note that, at this very time, France is making a big show of sending troops and money to help Venice and Christendom at Candia; on this background it would be piquant if the French made Turkish compliments part of their case (the Turks also might consider the left-hand seat insulting). England is, in deeds if not in words, rather pro-Turk, and so perhaps not in as good a posture in discussions on Candia, especially if it turns to whose religion is best or oldest.
By coincidence, and speaking of Ambassadors, the Gazette (No. 268, page 1) just reported that, on May 26, as part of making nice to the pope, the French Ambassador bringing notice of the late peace with Spain also informed His Holiness that "the King his Master hath conſented that the Pillar of Igominy erected in the late Popes time in memory of the affront offered by the Corſick soldiers to the then Ambassador the Duke de Crequy, ſhall be ſpeedily ſemolished". Crequy, who in 1662 had come to mediate in a nasty dispute between the Alexander VII's Corsican guards and those of a cardinal, had been rewarded with bullets in his coach, several servants killed and his house pulled down, in a bad case of an inter-guard tavern brawl spiralling out of control (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cor…). The gentry may be well-behaved enough, but then there's all these mercenaries in their entourage, ready to seize the least pretext to prove their loyalty and settle their own scores.
The fire in Barbadoes - but that was more than two months ago! And in the Spring, when the sailing weather is good (isn't it?) However it seems the news were particularly slow to come, given notes on dispatches written in the days following the fire that they were "read in Council" only in late June or as late as mid-July (e.g. Nos. 1734, 1740 and 1741 at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…).
Sam could have got the news in Bristol, where one would have expected them to come first and to be of great local interest, but it seems he had to reconnect with the official channels and so they may have been not only slow, but kept quiet. They are of more than idle interest to him, because a lot of shipping now has to be arranged for the reconstruction, and quickly before the French grab the ruins. Indeed the latest from the colonists (Nos. 1770-1772 at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) is an urgent request for dozens of cannons.
It must have been quite a show. The letters say as many as 300 barrels of powder went off, and a thousand houses (mostly dry thatch) were wiped out in the space of 2-3 hours. All the slaves ran away, how terrible. One letter (No. 1734) reports "it is suspected (...) that a little negro boy took up a candle into the garret". Hmmm, but that was just the latest disaster in those colonies, when it's not a fire it's a hurricane or the French or the Indians. Completely unsustainable.
The Swiss are more than the name of a canton, the cantons having been unified since 1291, they are a name of dread, for Switzerland is a wild country of impregnable mountains, and fortified cities where firebrand Calvinists preach the export of their revolution. It is also where mercenaries come from, making Switzerland an even more fearsome power than it is today. Louis, having captured the neighboring Franche Comté, has refrained from going further east but had to deal with those mercenaries there and in Flanders, and has lately been banging the table asking that they refrain from serving against France, or else. A lot of French troops are still out there, starting to stand down but still rampaging quite a bit because it seems Louis has forgotten to pay them.
But Holden's letter is interesting, in suggesting the general disbelief (at least in chanceries) that anything so outlandish as a peace treaty, such as France and Spain have just proclaimed, can be more than a ruse for this or that of the European powers to pivot to its next target. On June 16 the Venetian ambassador to Paris, Marc Antonio Giustinian, was reporting that "The two most powerful fleets of England and Holland which are on the point of forming a conjunction are keeping every one on the watch to see in what direction they propose to steer their course. (...) Here they are afraid that these fleets mean to scour the seas, showing their power everywhere for the purpose of causing themselves to be recognised as masters of the Ocean and the Mediterranean, the exclusive sovereigns and masters of every trade route." [https://www.british-history.ac.uk…]
The latter would send shivers up the spine of any Venetian, and shortly would be a good description of what England and Holland will start trying in southeast Asia. But for now, Britannia ruling, ruling the waves..? From London and seen through the prism of all these unpaid bills, unprovisioned ships, deserting, incompetent impressed sailors and general terror of a French invasion, it seems incredible, but in fact the Navy is causing quite a bit of nervousness.
YES! Yes of course it was William PENN I meant, my lords, Penn not Pett, just a honest mistype, we swear, why, in no wise would our little satire EVER contemplate disregard, or disrespect, of your most rightful Condemnation of the despicable Mr. Penn, I mean Pett, Pett-Pett-Pett, my lords, of course not, such is the Very High Regard your lordships may be assured we have of Parliament, why, but absolutely my lords, and most especially your Most Dignified and Respectable Committee. Yes, yes, of course, yes, thank you so very much my lords.
My Lord Sandwich, still packing his bags in Madrid, is also very merry today, or was very recently, as his colleague from Venice, Catterin Belegno, is cabling home that "Sandovich is waiting for a ship to take him from St. Ander to London"; the Muscovite ambassador is leaving too, and "Presents of equal quality have been sent by the queen to both; to the English ambassador a very rich one and 4000 doubles as a contribution to his maintenance" [https://www.british-history.ac.uk…].
4,000 doublons! Gulp. In a country still dripping with gold and silver, that would be good money - 16,000 dollars judging from https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…, "The famed Gold Doubloon was worth (...) approximately 4 dollars". At 53 shillings/Charles II silver dollar as per https://en.numista.com/catalogue/…, and 20 shillings/pound, would that be, good Lord, £42,400??
Even assuming some confusion along the way between the various species of doublons and dollars in circulation, compare this with the budget of £4,000 which Parliament had granted Sandwich last year, which we had thought quite enough already.
Part of the rationale was that my Lord wouldn't have to pay for his drinks too often. Indeed; there he goes, the English ambassador, his pockets heavy with the host country's money. England and Spain are currently best friends, and 'tis but the normal courtesies of princes, but still. Most of it may have gone to the multitude of debts and unpaid bills that must have accumulated in his (wildly successful) two years' tenure, but 4,000 still looks like a nicely round number. Surely the Queen, if she agreed to cover those costs, would have generously covered them entirely, and then some.
Sandwich, as he relaxes on his way home, can certainly pay the $4 they charge for a whisky even in first class, make plans to fund his own crusade to liberate Crete from the Turks, and hope that no one in London will ever know or care about the "very rich... contribution to his maintenance".
Let us spare a thought for Will Murford, as he briefly surfaced from among the human office equipment known as "my Clerks", and won't reappear. Sam regularly feeds them and banters with them at his own table, as a feudal lord his retainers. But their lives, opinions, jokes, anecdotes and theater reviews are lost to us, as he does not sees them fit to record any more than yesterday's ink-change to the copy machine.
Murford, then, gets one-and-a-half line in Robert Latham's 600-page Pepys Companion (UC Press, 2000, https://books.google.fr/books?id=…). At least he will forever be "young Murford". Indeed on his previous appearance, again accompanying Sam into the country, he rode his own horse alongside Sam's coach, so, as befits a messenger, he was (then) a swift and supple young man, good enough a rider for the Navy's communications. On his last appearance, back on October 7-9, he was also derided as the guy "not knowing how to open our door", among "other pleasant simplicities". A messenger however had to have enough wits to deal with the road's many complications (highwaymen, floods, lame horses, full inns, bad roads, bad guides, weather, no signage, detours, getting lost in the woods, more highwaymen, etc); maybe he was in training. On that particular trip Sam also happened to dig out the remainder of his buried gold from Brampton, so there would have had to be some trust between Sam and young Murford.
So why is he here? Did he need vacations too? Fun enough to be in the entourage? Just part of the security detail? Happens to know the road? His being a messenger can't be accidental.
"Mr Pepys", commissioner Pett had told Sam last week, "I'm so happy for you that His Grace granted this vacation, you surely deserve it, but, ah, if urgent matters should come up, uh..."
"Well, I won't be here for them, I'm afraid".
"At least can you take a messenger and check in once in a while?"
And so Sam, workaholic that he is, equipped with the latest in portable scriptoriums, is constantly checking on Murford - to Bess' despair that he can't let go of work, even here. They're about a 10-hour ride to London now, as the post goes (the State Papers' "Post Labels" collection, e.g. at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…, shows Bristol-London to have taken ~24 hours in 1667, with stops). He can shuttle back to the office every night.
Alas, despite all the Post Office propaganda on how their high-speed network covers all of England, Mumford always shakes his head: Nope, no service here; road not good enough. Or it's the horse that constantly needs some hay - every inn they enter, the first query is, "can we recharge the horses here?"
But if he can't be used for communication, at least Mumford has games; he can juggle, and knows card tricks, and recites stories. A most usefull device of a man to have around; you do get to depend on the convenience...
So, Mr. Pepys, welcome back. And you had thought of retiring early to Brampton? See how empty the past couple of days have been, how dull the conversation, how all alike those sheep are, and how you sprang back to life on this little escapade to Newport, like a withered plant that finally got water? But now there you are, buzzing about, moving non-stop, visiting the crypt, clambering on the leads, seething with impatience at those sloths who can't keep up and -- the horror -- waste your time. And spending money! That, Hewer, is life!
Of course a Natural Philosopher could have filled pages with inventories of grasshoppers, Proust would have explored the endless reaches of his inner feelings... but not you. It's only when this bridge of many arches came into view that the spark returned.
Or perhaps..? Papa Pepys, seeing how this time you wouldn't just flit in and out like a tourist, put you to work a little? "There's 25 carts of hay to bring in and the rain is coming - We need every pair of arms!" "Sweet lord, son, here everybody knows what to do when the calf's coming out sideways". "We've fattened this pig for when you'd take the time to stay at last - the honour of killing it is yours! Take this knife".
Sam and Will Hewer, back-broken after those three hours of fieldwork, are now sprawled on benches in some farmyard and sample the surprisingly strong booze these country folk brew around here. Sam fumbles with his notebook and gives up.
"Uhhh no I can't", Sam says, slurring his words. Will nods in sympathy. "And you know what, Will, even here, they're heeere, watchin' me - so I gan't".
"Who's here, boss? The children?" (Two dozen are always here of course, watching the strangers' every move).
"Nuuh - Them who watch when I write, Will. I can feel them. The people from the vut... from the future".
"People from the future watch when you write, boss? Wow, far out." But Sam is snoring away already, head on the rough table in his spilled liquor. One of the kids discreetly sponges the drink with his sleeve.
Early morning at the Office. Hewer brings Sam's mail, neatly sorted into the usual three piles: The State business, to be dispatched with all Diligence; the sob stories from suppliers and unpaid sailors, to be fobbed off if at all possible; and the cranks. Everyday there's a few, especially since The Speech made Sam a celeb.
Hewer has saved this one for last: "So, she's an old lady in Woolwich, and the hubby worked all his life at the dockyards there, and she says he never got a penny in ten years and has now died, &c."
"How sad. How does this belong in the nut file?"
"Well she does want money, but if you can't pay up, she wants you - and I'm quoting her, boss, understand - to 'lay with me, and pay with Seed, and beget me a golden-haired child'".
"Ho-hoo". The two other clerks in the room have put down their quills and raised noses from account books.
"And wait, if you wouldn't do it, there's an ultimatum: 'I shall wait until the end of Summer, this being the most Auspicious season, and by the Arts of my black cat, rat and bat, heed me now: In one year to this day, we will be joyous with our newborn son, or you will be afflicted by a Great Sorrow'".
The others guffaw and start making bawdy rhymes in -at. Sam only gives Hewer and his letter a thin smile. Asks him to destroy the letter, given how it could get the old woman of Woolwich in real trouble if found by less open-minded authorities. Rubs his eyes, already painful after a couple of hours of letter-writing. "A year from now, eh?"
================================ Mr. Ogilby's Lottery of Books (Adventurers comming in ſo fast that they cannot in ſo ſhort time be methodically regiſtred) opens not till Tueſday the 2d of June; then not failing to draw: at the Old Theater between Lincolns-Inn-Fields and Vere-ſtreet. ================================
This in Gazette No. 263, page 2. But nay, la House de Bagwell is so much more interesting a place to be today. But Ogilby (a.k.a. Ogleby) was a cartographer and printer of distinction, and our Sam did try his luck once at the auctions he arranged from time to time, his work presumably being in more demand than he could supply readily (in early 1666, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…). In this case the Adventurers came fast indeed, because Ogilby had already advertised his Lottery in Gazette No. 262 as opening on May 25.
Notice also, how the Adventurers must be methodically regiſtred. 'Tis the new way, do all things methodically.
Comments
Second Reading
About Monday 7 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
In today's mailbag there was also one letter, packed with action and that would break our Venetian friend's heart if he knew. S.P. Dom. Car. II. 245 No. 200 in the State Paper's cryptic numbering, it's a "certificate" dated September 7 by a merchant, Henry Rowe, and officers of two ships, the Monmouth and the Princess.
It shows England to be so notoriously friendly to the Turks, that the ships of other nations hide in its convoys and pretend to be English when crossing the Med. But sometimes it doesn't work - true English blood just can't be faked, what. On September 3, the two English vessels took a Portuguese ship under their wing, "and lent the captain an ancient and vanes [English flags] and 6 men to answer the hail in English". They also "advis[ed] him to take his images and crosses from his stern, and paint it black to disguise it, but this he neglected to do".
And so five Turkish vessels showed up, the Portuguese captain and his men suddenly remembered all this stuff displayed on the stern, and panicked and started jumping out. Those left aboard ended up striking down their false flags and surrendering - quite possibly for a new career on the Sultan's galleys - while the two English captains hurriedly retrieved their men and the Turks advised them not to play these games.
This mess was apparently one too many for the Levant Company, which tomorrow (Sept. 8) will write a flurry of letters - also referencing what may have been another flap involving "the Leghorn vessel" - to its staff in Constantinople, Smyrna and Aleppo, on how "No foreign ship is in future to be taken under English protection, the small advantage of the duties [ah, so it wasn't free] not compensating the dangers".
About Monday 7 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
And yes, Tonyel, there is absolutely a film script in there (or even several). Killing someone, as most of the literature on time machines invites you to do, has got to be the least interesting use to which you can put them.
About Monday 7 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
In the same vein Piero also learned that Colbert has offered that France and England be exclusive trading partners ("That the trade of the two kingdoms shall be common and reciprocal, to the exclusion of every other nation, so that what is produced in France shall be transported by Englishmen only and that only Frenchmen shall have the exportation of goods from this country"), which seems just fanciful decoration for more practical proposals - such as, second bombshell, "the Most Christian [Louis XIV] offering to buy the fortress of Tanger for cash down". He reminds the Senate that "they [England] have begun the construction of a mole, at which they are at work incessantly, at an immense cost", to which Sam could attest. England's plan for Tangiers, he writes, is to make it a tollbooth for all ships entering the Mediterranean, similar to what the king of Denmark does for all traffic entering the Baltic through the Øresund, between Denmark and Sweden - ironically, at a price which has "caused some heart searching to the king here". If that's the plan, it looks nice on paper but our advice is - take the money! Whaddya think, Sam, good idea or not to sell Tangiers to the French?
About Monday 7 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Speaking of bags of money, our friend Piero Mocenigo, ambassador of Venice, had a bit of a bombshell to report yesterday.
Long story short: Piero, recently arrived in London, has been busy. His main job is to get Charles II to do his Christian duty and help liberate Candia (a Venetian colony in Crete) from its years-long siege by the Turks. Piero writes remarkably long and detailed cables, available at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…, and yesterday he's been particularly prolix (writing letters Nos. 338 to 340). Alas, on Candia he hasn't got much after three weeks of touring the grandees: "a ship (...) laden with salted meat", which "I have persuaded a rich merchant (...) of sending", is just about the only concrete result so far (this in No. 339). We'll keep a description of those efforts for another day; for now suffices to say that, as Sig. Mocenigo wearily concludes of the mercantile English, "all respect for religion is subordinated and they are moved solely by interests of state".
And now the bombshell: Like everyone else in London (including Sam), Sig. Mocenigo has been keenly monitoring Colbert's mysterious visit. "The ambassadors of Spain and Holland are closely watching every step and even gesture of the French ambassador", he writes (in letter No. 340). "It has been found that he has with him a great quantity of money, and although there is no certainty about the amount published, of 800,000 crowns, it must needs be considerable because the exchange of this mart for sending out money has fallen, and it will fall still further from the operation of the quantity of cash which has been brought in. This large capital is usually employed for the corruption of loyalty and to buy individuals, and it seemed that in large part it was to be distributed in continuing pensions to divers suitable persons whom the king of France tries to keep well disposed here to the interests of the Most Christian crown."
That's the headline: "France buys England". Yea, £200,000 would buy loyalties. From memory, it's around half of the State budget, and 50 times what Sandwich spent on his years-long embassy in Madrid. In another message on August 17 Piero had also noted that Colbert's digs in Leicester House are rented for £700, an extravagant amount which one would expect, for whatever it's good for, goes to the pockets of the Earl of Leicester. Louis XIV means business, does nothing by half, and is bulldozing his way into cash-strapped England, which struggles so much to pay for its excellent Navy and shipyards.
About Monday 7 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
How many guards and how many carts to move 10,000/. from London to Portsmouth? Always a good question; imagine what one could do with those letters and a good time machine. We don't know in what coin the money will be delivered but, if we assume it's in the current (Charles II) coinage, this study (https://www.britnumsoc.org/public…), the first which Mr. Google proposes on the topic (and yes, it's from 1919) suggests that as of 1668 the most abundant was silver crowns, worth one-quarter of a pound. We also don't know how much the workers are paid but it seems a sensible denomination for a bulk payment - if still quite large, let's hope the taverns have plenty of change.
Quick check at https://coinparade.co.uk/crowns: the 1662 crown (and later issues) weighs 29.45 grams. So it's 1,178 kg. In, perhaps, around 200 bags of 5 kg each - our sturdy guards can haul heavier bags, and heavier bags are harder to steal, but more at risk of breaking open (whoops). Surely they're not hauled in carts. The loot could all sensibly fit in a few coaches, perhaps armored and surrounded by fierce musketeers, or camouflaged with peeling paint to look poor, with the guards dressed as ugly nuns. Either way, it seems a bit much for the highwaymen, who are many but seem to come in ones and twos rather than in big Robin Hood bands. Better to pick out the drunk yardmen in a few days.
Anyway, it's about time. Another quick check, of the State Papers, show the £10k first surface in the current volume as authorized back in March, and the wheels took six months to turn.
About Saturday 1 August 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
For several weeks now, the Gazette, at the end of page 2 where the good stuff often is, has printed an Advertisement from the Lord Commissioners of the Treasury, to invite "all Receivers and other Accountants", and all Collectors, to show up, on Tuesdays at 7 of the morning or on Thursdays at 3 of the afternoon, to account for the taxes they have Collected, or (for the Receivers), received from the Collectors. So far, so good, in a system where of course tax collection is outsourced to private gentlemen.
Except, the notices pertained to recovering, among many taxes, "the one Moneths Tax from the 29 of September 1660" and "from the First of July 1661". That's right, money collected as long as 8 years ago. Admittedly those were still unsettled years, but the Collectors were still "admonished (...) to take care forthwith to pay all such Moneys to the Receivers as they have in their hands", or else.
Now, Gazette No. 281, containing items dated through July 31, must be hitting the streets today, and the series comes to an end with this page 2 ad: "Whereas Advertisement hath been several times given to the Receivers of His Majesties' Money, that they should without delay pay into His Majesties' Exchequer all such Moneys as were remaining in their hand, and apply themselves with diligence to their respective Auditors", &c. &c. &c., "very many of them have neither done the one nor the other", and so the Treasury will be cracking down.
Thus is exposed one of the reasons why Sam can't pay the bills, apart from all the demands placed on the money pipe, and the Realm's sorry condition post-Fire/war/plague: The tax collectors have kept the loot for themselves, unmolested since the Restoration, to fund their coaches and manor houses. Sam would surely not have needed the Gazette to know this but might still have nodded at the display. He also thinks the lord Treasurers are unusually competent, for a Commission. So will they succeed? Why, perhaps the Treasury will seize some of those coaches and auction them cheap ...
About Saturday 5 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
And that's the status right now: It's all in the bulging saddlebags of things to negotiate with dear brother Charles II which Charles Colbert has brought to London. Is it such a tragedy? St. Albans isn't so sure, actually, as in his letter of July 15 he noted that "even when they [the French] shall execute fully the Treaty of Breda it will be very costly to us before we can be re-established, and after without much cost more, be not much the better for being re-established", in particular because the English planters have resettled all over the Caribbean. A possible solution, handed out by some unnamed French official and which St. Albans relays on July 28 in another memo to Arlington: "either a change for some of their islands for our part of St. Christopher's or the buying it with their money". The Most Christian not being above just paying his way out of problems, and Colbert having bigger fish to fry in London than cost estimates for jail food and a few thatched huts.
About Saturday 5 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Things are never simple in the colonies, what with those hurricanoes, freewheeling governors and colonels building their own kingdomes, fractious planters, the constant threat of fevers and Indians (the latter often grown quite good at playing one colonial power against another), and the slow and complicated communication between the islands and with faraway Europe. This is all so impossible to manage, you have to wonder if these colonies will still be around in a century; and all this so the Pepys of the world can put sugar in their coffee.
Lambarte also remarked, in his letter to HM, that St. Christopher wasn't just some confetti but "once resettled (...) will put a check on all the French in America". Perhaps. The English are also not blameless; while all this aggravation is going on with the French, Charles II was coming close to firing Willoughby for letting his son, who had been appointed to run Suriname after it swung from Dutch to English rule, refuse to return it to the Dutch under the same treaty of Breda, then return it only after having trashed the place (he even burned a windmill, not a nice thing to do to the Dutch).
And so Charles took a new quill and wrote to Loouie, sometime in June (No. 1777 in the State Papers' colonial series). Ambassador St. Albans delivered the letter on June 30, and was told by the Most Christian himself that the Most Christian "did not use to break his word, and should less do it to the King [of England] than to anybody; that it was to be presumed that some mistake risen by the absence of La Barre, the Governor, is the cause of the delay". Isn't that cute. Why, the Most Christian was almost flustered at being so let down by his people.
But even so, there's still all these technical details, the cost estimates and all that. So, in a letter of July 15 to Arlington, St. Albans now relays from M. de Lionne - Loouis' foreign minister - "that the French King desires his Majesty [of England] not to send the new orders for restitution to M. De la Barre until M. Colbert has laid before his Majesty all that is necessary for the execution of the Treaty, otherwise it is feared that De la Barre might not execute even these last orders".
About Saturday 5 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Louis XIV has some nerve! Yes he does, doesn't he. It comes with being the Sun King.
But the St. Christopher problem is more complicated than what Mr. Pocock has picked up in Yarmouth, and has already escalated, twice, to their Majesties' level. It's one of the main diplomatic actions right now, and worth elaborating upon. Just to skim the flood of ink and letters in the colonial archives (explore them at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…), Loouie did agree under the Treaty of Breda to return St. C as long ago as 1667, and on May 2 last, William Lord Willoughby, governor of Barbadoes and England's main man in the Caribbean, related in a formal protest that when the restitution order were served on M. le Chevalier De St. Laurence, French Governor of St. Christopher, "he refusing to take [them in hand, the order] was laid down before him on a chair". How rude.
On May 30 Willoughby attached to a report to Arlington, a memo from M. Lefebre De la Barre, French governor of Guyana, who (as summarized) had explained that "the English must first reimburse the price of the purchases of the French, as well as amelioration, as agreed at the English Court, besides the food of the [English] prisoners, which amounts to great sums", noting further that the houses "built by the French since the hurricane belong of right to them, and as to movables they also belong to the French by the right of war". And a further complication concerning slaves: "if the English demand those taken at St. Christopher's, the French have equal right to demand those taken at Cayenne and sold at Barbadoes, but if any difficulty arises about this article it can be settled by their masters in Europe."
On June 25 in another memo which (on June 28) a colonel Lambarte passed on to Charles II, De la Barre added "that he cannot put his Majesty of England or his Commissioners in possession of that part of St. Christopher's stipulated to be returned to the English unless all the articles of the Treaty concerning this country are at the same time executed", and added a few specifics to the horse-trading: "that restitution be made for things taken since the cessation of hostilities, vizt., 39 negroes [sic, sorry about that] and 3,000 florins in plate and moveables from Cayenne by Henry Willoughby; 12 negroes retained by the Governor of Montserrat ; eight negroes taken from Martinique; and a barque of the West India Company; and that reimbursement be made for the price of dwellings sold by the English to the French, with the ameliorations that have been made according to the estimation of Commissioners named on either side." So now experts have to be appointed to estimate costs, too.
About Tuesday 1 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Regarding the State Papers, first allow us to direct a Disapproving Frown at the University of London, which indeed seems to have seen fit to paywall a 150-year-old HMSO compilation of centuries-old government papers, now in PRO archives, that should be about as copyright-free as the Bible. Just to butter the toast on both sides, the website also sells advertising (one ad invites us to "discover the stocking evidence of Jesus' resurrection!")
But OK, they're not the fattest piece of toast around, at £35 their annual subscription is still cheaper than what many academic publishers want for a peek at a single article, and here are two Dry-Your-Tears caveats: First, some of the collections which the UoL toiled so hard to double-key-digitize are still free to access (the publick, in the form of the Arts and Humanities Council, having paid for it), including Pepys-years archives on Venice and the colonies that are rich in crunchy nuggets and not readily available elsewhere.
Second, there's a free Google Books version of the State Papers. It's a bit more awkward to use because each volume has to be fished out from their vast catalog, the scans cannot be cut-and-pasted, and lately there seems to be a bug that only makes them (at least in our case) readable in the Google Play Books application rather than straight on the website. But navigate all this and it works great and you can still get your fix - as a bonus, in a nice vintage font and with no scanning errors.
The current volume, covering November 1667 through September 1668, is at https://play.google.com/books/rea….
Today's dose includes letters in defense of the Dean of Chester, "attacked by the rage of calumny, by some mean spirits, as the dogs of Arcadia feared not to bark at the moon" - surely a quote deserving of reuse - and even a letter to Pepys, of the depressingly routine variety: Edward Byland "has done nothing in the musters", and (perhaps not unconnected) "wants a bill for his salary as deputy treasurer for 13 months". We can imagine Sam having a deep sigh at this one, and checking his minute watch - is it 4 o'clock yet?
About Sunday 14 January 1665/66
Stephane Chenard • Link
The news of my being lost was very exaggerated. Truly I was on a secret Embassy to New Spain, occasioned by the Peace now ratified between the two Crowns and in parts whence sadly the Post hardly reaches. As you read this I should have taken passage back across the ocean Sea. Providence send that we should be spared by tempests and pyrates, and may God give me the strength to catch up with this huge bag of Gazettes and Papers.
About Thursday 25 June 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Now, why did Williamson require all this research on the precedence of English vs. French kings and ambassadors? Of course who sits where matters a great deal to diplomats (just have a look at the group engravings from the recent G7 summit in Wales), and 'tis an Age when sea-captains risk starting the next war by shooting between each other's masts when they feel the other guy didn't lower his flag enough - why, 'tis not so long that the escorts of two Ambassadors slaughtered each other on the question of whose Excellency's coach should go first through a narrow street in Madrid (or was it Cracow, 'twas in the Gazette).
There is a lot to unpack in Dr. Jenkins' treatise, and the subtle implications which could be made from seating arrangements on the broader rights of all these intermarrying dynasties are beyond our immediate ability to puzzle, so we'll just remark on the context in which the doctor was sent to dust off his Albericus Gentilis. Monsieur Colbert is about to visit London, could this be part of the preparations? If so, how come the protocol needs to be researched, given all the routine, high-level contact between France and England? Are Charles and Louis planning a summit?
Interesting also that the Venetians are mentioned at length. Lodged as they are between the French and the Spaniards (in Naples), it's understandable that they won't pick sides in such quarrels, but note that, at this very time, France is making a big show of sending troops and money to help Venice and Christendom at Candia; on this background it would be piquant if the French made Turkish compliments part of their case (the Turks also might consider the left-hand seat insulting). England is, in deeds if not in words, rather pro-Turk, and so perhaps not in as good a posture in discussions on Candia, especially if it turns to whose religion is best or oldest.
By coincidence, and speaking of Ambassadors, the Gazette (No. 268, page 1) just reported that, on May 26, as part of making nice to the pope, the French Ambassador bringing notice of the late peace with Spain also informed His Holiness that "the King his Master hath conſented that the Pillar of Igominy erected in the late Popes time in memory of the affront offered by the Corſick soldiers to the then Ambassador the Duke de Crequy, ſhall be ſpeedily ſemolished". Crequy, who in 1662 had come to mediate in a nasty dispute between the Alexander VII's Corsican guards and those of a cardinal, had been rewarded with bullets in his coach, several servants killed and his house pulled down, in a bad case of an inter-guard tavern brawl spiralling out of control (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cor…). The gentry may be well-behaved enough, but then there's all these mercenaries in their entourage, ready to seize the least pretext to prove their loyalty and settle their own scores.
About Wednesday 17 June 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
The fire in Barbadoes - but that was more than two months ago! And in the Spring, when the sailing weather is good (isn't it?) However it seems the news were particularly slow to come, given notes on dispatches written in the days following the fire that they were "read in Council" only in late June or as late as mid-July (e.g. Nos. 1734, 1740 and 1741 at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…).
Sam could have got the news in Bristol, where one would have expected them to come first and to be of great local interest, but it seems he had to reconnect with the official channels and so they may have been not only slow, but kept quiet. They are of more than idle interest to him, because a lot of shipping now has to be arranged for the reconstruction, and quickly before the French grab the ruins. Indeed the latest from the colonists (Nos. 1770-1772 at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) is an urgent request for dozens of cannons.
It must have been quite a show. The letters say as many as 300 barrels of powder went off, and a thousand houses (mostly dry thatch) were wiped out in the space of 2-3 hours. All the slaves ran away, how terrible. One letter (No. 1734) reports "it is suspected (...) that a little negro boy took up a candle into the garret". Hmmm, but that was just the latest disaster in those colonies, when it's not a fire it's a hurricane or the French or the Indians. Completely unsustainable.
About Wednesday 17 June 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
The Swiss are more than the name of a canton, the cantons having been unified since 1291, they are a name of dread, for Switzerland is a wild country of impregnable mountains, and fortified cities where firebrand Calvinists preach the export of their revolution. It is also where mercenaries come from, making Switzerland an even more fearsome power than it is today. Louis, having captured the neighboring Franche Comté, has refrained from going further east but had to deal with those mercenaries there and in Flanders, and has lately been banging the table asking that they refrain from serving against France, or else. A lot of French troops are still out there, starting to stand down but still rampaging quite a bit because it seems Louis has forgotten to pay them.
But Holden's letter is interesting, in suggesting the general disbelief (at least in chanceries) that anything so outlandish as a peace treaty, such as France and Spain have just proclaimed, can be more than a ruse for this or that of the European powers to pivot to its next target. On June 16 the Venetian ambassador to Paris, Marc Antonio Giustinian, was reporting that "The two most powerful fleets of England and Holland which are on the point of forming a conjunction are keeping every one on the watch to see in what direction they propose to steer their course. (...) Here they are afraid that these fleets mean to scour the seas, showing their power everywhere for the purpose of causing themselves to be recognised as masters of the Ocean and the Mediterranean, the exclusive sovereigns and masters of every trade route." [https://www.british-history.ac.uk…]
The latter would send shivers up the spine of any Venetian, and shortly would be a good description of what England and Holland will start trying in southeast Asia. But for now, Britannia ruling, ruling the waves..? From London and seen through the prism of all these unpaid bills, unprovisioned ships, deserting, incompetent impressed sailors and general terror of a French invasion, it seems incredible, but in fact the Navy is causing quite a bit of nervousness.
About Thursday 11 June 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
YES! Yes of course it was William PENN I meant, my lords, Penn not Pett, just a honest mistype, we swear, why, in no wise would our little satire EVER contemplate disregard, or disrespect, of your most rightful Condemnation of the despicable Mr. Penn, I mean Pett, Pett-Pett-Pett, my lords, of course not, such is the Very High Regard your lordships may be assured we have of Parliament, why, but absolutely my lords, and most especially your Most Dignified and Respectable Committee. Yes, yes, of course, yes, thank you so very much my lords.
Pfew. Close call. Thanks Sarah.
About Friday 12 June 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
My Lord Sandwich, still packing his bags in Madrid, is also very merry today, or was very recently, as his colleague from Venice, Catterin Belegno, is cabling home that "Sandovich is waiting for a ship to take him from St. Ander to London"; the Muscovite ambassador is leaving too, and "Presents of equal quality have been sent by the queen to both; to the English ambassador a very rich one and 4000 doubles as a contribution to his maintenance" [https://www.british-history.ac.uk…].
4,000 doublons! Gulp. In a country still dripping with gold and silver, that would be good money - 16,000 dollars judging from https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…, "The famed Gold Doubloon was worth (...) approximately 4 dollars". At 53 shillings/Charles II silver dollar as per https://en.numista.com/catalogue/…, and 20 shillings/pound, would that be, good Lord, £42,400??
Even assuming some confusion along the way between the various species of doublons and dollars in circulation, compare this with the budget of £4,000 which Parliament had granted Sandwich last year, which we had thought quite enough already.
Part of the rationale was that my Lord wouldn't have to pay for his drinks too often. Indeed; there he goes, the English ambassador, his pockets heavy with the host country's money. England and Spain are currently best friends, and 'tis but the normal courtesies of princes, but still. Most of it may have gone to the multitude of debts and unpaid bills that must have accumulated in his (wildly successful) two years' tenure, but 4,000 still looks like a nicely round number. Surely the Queen, if she agreed to cover those costs, would have generously covered them entirely, and then some.
Sandwich, as he relaxes on his way home, can certainly pay the $4 they charge for a whisky even in first class, make plans to fund his own crusade to liberate Crete from the Turks, and hope that no one in London will ever know or care about the "very rich... contribution to his maintenance".
About Thursday 11 June 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Let us spare a thought for Will Murford, as he briefly surfaced from among the human office equipment known as "my Clerks", and won't reappear. Sam regularly feeds them and banters with them at his own table, as a feudal lord his retainers. But their lives, opinions, jokes, anecdotes and theater reviews are lost to us, as he does not sees them fit to record any more than yesterday's ink-change to the copy machine.
Murford, then, gets one-and-a-half line in Robert Latham's 600-page Pepys Companion (UC Press, 2000, https://books.google.fr/books?id=…). At least he will forever be "young Murford". Indeed on his previous appearance, again accompanying Sam into the country, he rode his own horse alongside Sam's coach, so, as befits a messenger, he was (then) a swift and supple young man, good enough a rider for the Navy's communications. On his last appearance, back on October 7-9, he was also derided as the guy "not knowing how to open our door", among "other pleasant simplicities". A messenger however had to have enough wits to deal with the road's many complications (highwaymen, floods, lame horses, full inns, bad roads, bad guides, weather, no signage, detours, getting lost in the woods, more highwaymen, etc); maybe he was in training. On that particular trip Sam also happened to dig out the remainder of his buried gold from Brampton, so there would have had to be some trust between Sam and young Murford.
So why is he here? Did he need vacations too? Fun enough to be in the entourage? Just part of the security detail? Happens to know the road? His being a messenger can't be accidental.
"Mr Pepys", commissioner Pett had told Sam last week, "I'm so happy for you that His Grace granted this vacation, you surely deserve it, but, ah, if urgent matters should come up, uh..."
"Well, I won't be here for them, I'm afraid".
"At least can you take a messenger and check in once in a while?"
And so Sam, workaholic that he is, equipped with the latest in portable scriptoriums, is constantly checking on Murford - to Bess' despair that he can't let go of work, even here. They're about a 10-hour ride to London now, as the post goes (the State Papers' "Post Labels" collection, e.g. at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…, shows Bristol-London to have taken ~24 hours in 1667, with stops). He can shuttle back to the office every night.
Alas, despite all the Post Office propaganda on how their high-speed network covers all of England, Mumford always shakes his head: Nope, no service here; road not good enough. Or it's the horse that constantly needs some hay - every inn they enter, the first query is, "can we recharge the horses here?"
But if he can't be used for communication, at least Mumford has games; he can juggle, and knows card tricks, and recites stories. A most usefull device of a man to have around; you do get to depend on the convenience...
About Monday 8 June 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
So, Mr. Pepys, welcome back. And you had thought of retiring early to Brampton? See how empty the past couple of days have been, how dull the conversation, how all alike those sheep are, and how you sprang back to life on this little escapade to Newport, like a withered plant that finally got water? But now there you are, buzzing about, moving non-stop, visiting the crypt, clambering on the leads, seething with impatience at those sloths who can't keep up and -- the horror -- waste your time. And spending money! That, Hewer, is life!
Of course a Natural Philosopher could have filled pages with inventories of grasshoppers, Proust would have explored the endless reaches of his inner feelings... but not you. It's only when this bridge of many arches came into view that the spark returned.
Or perhaps..? Papa Pepys, seeing how this time you wouldn't just flit in and out like a tourist, put you to work a little? "There's 25 carts of hay to bring in and the rain is coming - We need every pair of arms!" "Sweet lord, son, here everybody knows what to do when the calf's coming out sideways". "We've fattened this pig for when you'd take the time to stay at last - the honour of killing it is yours! Take this knife".
Sam and Will Hewer, back-broken after those three hours of fieldwork, are now sprawled on benches in some farmyard and sample the surprisingly strong booze these country folk brew around here. Sam fumbles with his notebook and gives up.
"Uhhh no I can't", Sam says, slurring his words. Will nods in sympathy. "And you know what, Will, even here, they're heeere, watchin' me - so I gan't".
"Who's here, boss? The children?" (Two dozen are always here of course, watching the strangers' every move).
"Nuuh - Them who watch when I write, Will. I can feel them. The people from the vut... from the future".
"People from the future watch when you write, boss? Wow, far out." But Sam is snoring away already, head on the rough table in his spilled liquor. One of the kids discreetly sponges the drink with his sleeve.
About Tuesday 2 June 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Early morning at the Office. Hewer brings Sam's mail, neatly sorted into the usual three piles: The State business, to be dispatched with all Diligence; the sob stories from suppliers and unpaid sailors, to be fobbed off if at all possible; and the cranks. Everyday there's a few, especially since The Speech made Sam a celeb.
Hewer has saved this one for last: "So, she's an old lady in Woolwich, and the hubby worked all his life at the dockyards there, and she says he never got a penny in ten years and has now died, &c."
"How sad. How does this belong in the nut file?"
"Well she does want money, but if you can't pay up, she wants you - and I'm quoting her, boss, understand - to 'lay with me, and pay with Seed, and beget me a golden-haired child'".
"Ho-hoo". The two other clerks in the room have put down their quills and raised noses from account books.
"And wait, if you wouldn't do it, there's an ultimatum: 'I shall wait until the end of Summer, this being the most Auspicious season, and by the Arts of my black cat, rat and bat, heed me now: In one year to this day, we will be joyous with our newborn son, or you will be afflicted by a Great Sorrow'".
The others guffaw and start making bawdy rhymes in -at. Sam only gives Hewer and his letter a thin smile. Asks him to destroy the letter, given how it could get the old woman of Woolwich in real trouble if found by less open-minded authorities. Rubs his eyes, already painful after a couple of hours of letter-writing. "A year from now, eh?"
About Tuesday 2 June 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Quick, quick, they might still be open:
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Mr. Ogilby's Lottery of Books (Adventurers comming in ſo fast that they cannot in ſo ſhort time be methodically regiſtred) opens not till Tueſday the 2d of June; then not failing to draw: at the Old Theater between Lincolns-Inn-Fields and Vere-ſtreet.
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This in Gazette No. 263, page 2. But nay, la House de Bagwell is so much more interesting a place to be today. But Ogilby (a.k.a. Ogleby) was a cartographer and printer of distinction, and our Sam did try his luck once at the auctions he arranged from time to time, his work presumably being in more demand than he could supply readily (in early 1666, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…). In this case the Adventurers came fast indeed, because Ogilby had already advertised his Lottery in Gazette No. 262 as opening on May 25.
Notice also, how the Adventurers must be methodically regiſtred. 'Tis the new way, do all things methodically.