Tuesday 6 June 1665
Waked in the morning before 4 o’clock with great pain to piss, and great pain in pissing by having, I think, drank too great a draught of cold drink before going to bed. But by and by to sleep again, and then rose and to the office, where very busy all the morning, and at noon to dinner with Sir G. Carteret to his house with all our Board, where a good pasty and brave discourse. But our great fear was some fresh news of the fleete, but not from the fleete, all being said to be well and beaten the Dutch, but I do not give much belief to it, and indeed the news come from Sir W. Batten at Harwich, and writ so simply that we all made good mirth of it. Thence to the office, where upon Sir G. Carteret’s accounts, to my great vexation there being nothing done by the Controller to right the King therein. I thence to my office and wrote letters all the afternoon, and in the evening by coach to Sir Ph. Warwicke’s about my Tangier business to get money, and so to my Lady Sandwich’s, who, poor lady, expects every hour to hear of my Lord; but in the best temper, neither confident nor troubled with fear, that I ever did see in my life. She tells me my Lord Rochester is now declaredly out of hopes of Mrs. Mallett, and now she is to receive notice in a day or two how the King stands inclined to the giving leave for my Lord Hinchingbroke to look after her, and that being done to bring it to an end shortly. Thence by coach home, and to my office a little, and so before 12 o’clock home and to bed.
8 Annotations
First Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"great pain in pissing by having, I think, drank too great a draught of cold drink before going to bed. "
Here, I presume, is another common application of medical humorism,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four… as we have seen whenever dysfunctionality involves Pepys's precious bodily fluids.
***
And humorism matters especially in wartime, as we see, mutatis mutandis, flashing forward 299 years to 1964:
General Jack D. Ripper: "Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?"
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: "No, I don't think I do, sir, no."
General Jack D. Ripper: "He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00570…
(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
Terry Foreman • Link
"a good pasty and brave discourse"
Such discourse always follows good pasty. http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
JWB • Link
It has not gone without notice the cryto-syndicalist solidarity of Mahan with Ripper: "In the first battle off Lowestoft, it appears that the Dutch commander, Opdam, who was not a seaman but a cavalry officer, had very positive orders to fight; the discretion proper to a commander-in-chief on the spot was not intrusted to him. To interfere thus with the commander in the field or afloat is one of the most common temptations to the government in the cabinet, and is generally disastrous. Tourville, the greatest of Louis XIV.'s admirals, was forced thus to risk the whole French navy against his own judgment; and a century later a great French fleet escaped from the English admiral Keith, through his obedience to imperative orders from his immediate superior, who was sick in port."op.cit. p108
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"the news come from Sir W. Batten at Harwich, and writ so simply that we all made good mirth of it."
Batten to Navy Board, 6 June" PRO,, SP 29/123 ,,no. 62, summary in CSPD 1664-5, p. 411: a laconic note reporting the destruction of 20-30 of the enemy fleet and the pursuit of the rest. (L&M note)
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Thence to the office, where upon Sir G. Carteret’s accounts, to my great vexation there being nothing done by the Controller to right the King therein. "
Does this mean that Carteret hasn't given Charles II the customary cut? That he has actually been so rash as to spend the money on the Navy?
Esteban • Link
"Waked in the morning before 4 o’clock with great pain to piss..." Remember that Sam had a stone the size of a tennis ball removed just seven years previously. It is probable that he was a stone former, and recurrence is common; he may be passing a small stone here which can be quite painful, but transient.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Pepys and Warwick have been talking about Sam keeping an eye on Carteret's accounts for a couple of years now. But this is the first time I recall him saying that he actually saw them. Since it's Tuesday I assume he did it in front of the whole office ... no mention of Carteret giving permission for him to do this, or what subterfuge he used to justify looking at another man's work.
From Claire Tomalin's "Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self" pp 49-50 http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo… "Sir George Carteret, … had official lodgings at Whitehall, a house in Pall Mall, another at Deptford and a country mansion near Windsor, and he was the highest paid, with 2,000l. a year and the right to three pence in every pound he handled -- this was a remnant of the old way of doing things."
No mention what the old way of doing things required being paid to the King.
&&&
I guess lunch today was in the Pall Mall house.
San Diego Sarah • Link
My error: THE CONTROLLER is, of course, Vice Admiral Sir John Mennes (1599 – 18 February 1671). Pepys described him as "ill at ease" in this role, and as of January 1664 it appears Mennes may have been experiencing Parkinson's, lead or alcohol poisoning.
So it's TREASURER Carteret giving Pepys permission to look at CONTROLLER Mennes' work. Mennes presumably was not at the lunch Board Meeting. It still seems a provocative thing to do, and can only cause problems in the office. If Mennes was party to the audit, Pepys wouldn't have said it was done "upon Sir G. Carteret’s accounts."
Another meaning of this is that over lunch Carteret expressed concern that his accounts had not been settled to include the King's "right". Pepys went back to the office and took a look to see what the truth of the situation was, and found that that was correct.
And they are out of funds anyways. Oh dear ...