Friday 7 September 1660

Not office day, and in the afternoon at home all the day, it being the first that I have been at home all day since I came hither.

Putting my papers, books and other things in order, and writing of letters. This day my Lord set sail from the Downs for Holland.

13 Annotations

First Reading

Paul Brewster  •  Link

An office day;
L&M and Wheatley have obviously come to quite differing conclusions about the shorthand. The characters probably appear quite similar ("a" is sans-serif "A" without the crossbar while "not" is a sans-serif "7") and Wheatley used the information in the second part of the sentence to reach his conclusion.

Paul Brewster  •  Link

This day my Lord set sail from the Downes for Holland.
The day's entry would have been even shorter without that last sentence which according to L&M was a "addition crowded into the end of the line."

chip  •  Link

The next few days are short entries. To continue yesterday's conversation, I too suspected he meant Pett. I was confused because he agrees to help Pett haggle with Conventry over the price of the "place". It is clear Pett wants Pepys to convince Conventry that the post is not worth that much. These rich families didn't get rich by chance, they were, and are, parsimonious. I agree that Pepys does not yet appreciate the reach of the Petts.

Ruben Lenger  •  Link

you can see a famous Pett image at "Peter Pett and the Sovereign of the Seas, by Sir Peter Lely" in the Maritime Art Museum at Greenwich, or in the Museum's site in the Internet.

Michael Robinson  •  Link

Navy Debt -- Today In Parliament

House of Commons Journal Volume 8: 7 September 1660 | British History Online
"and disburthening the Kingdom of the great Debt of the Navy. He told us, the Charge of the Navy is great;- Forty thousand Pounds a Month;-and (he desired us to observe it) it was not a Navy of the King's setting forth: Had it been so, the King would have taken care to provide for it: But his Majesty found the Charge;-made it not. He told us, Twenty-five Ships lay in Harbour, at a useless Charge amounting to Fifteen thousand Pounds a Month: And that the Inconveniences was not only the Uselessness of the Charge, but another Inconvenience followed; the Seamen lie idle, and by that means become unserviceable: And he told us, Sixscore thousand Pounds would cut off that Charge.""
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compi…

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"An office day, and in the afternoon at home all the day, it being the first that I have been at home all day "

I wonder if "at home" here refers to the Seething Lane navy compound and that it is NOT elsewhere. Later on in this vein he notes: "I sent them to church this morning, I staying at home at the office, busy." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1667/06/16/

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

The Diary of John Evelyn (Vol 1 of 2)
Author: John Evelyn
Commentator: Richard Garnett
Release Date: October 29, 2012 [EBook #41218]
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41218/41218.txt

7th September, 1660. I went to Chelsea to visit Mr. [ROBERT] Boyle, and see his pneumatic engine perform divers experiments.
Thence, to Kensington, to visit Mr. Henshaw, returning home that evening.

@@@

Since Robert Boyle was living at Oxford, when he came to London for Royal Society meetings he usually stayed with his sister, Katherine Boyle Jones, Lady Ranelagh, the estranged Parliamentarian wife of the Royalist Richard Jones, MP FRS, known as The Viscount Ranelagh between 1669 and 1677.
"Katy" was a friend of John Milton, and held an influential salon during the Interregnum. The Boyles were one of the families who seemed to be able to straddle the political divide without injuring too deeply their internal relationships.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

CORRECTION: Richard Jones was Katy's son.

Her husband was ARTHUR Jones, 2nd Visct. Ranelagh, who died on 7 Jan. 1670;
Richard's Parliamentary bio. says Arthur was "a drunken oaf, sat for Weobley in the Long Parliament until disabled for residing in the King’s quarters." [I don't know what the means exactly, but it sounds like he might have been a Royalist at heart.]
https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/…

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