council that a copy should be kept in the Council chest, another in
the Court of Exchequer, and a third in the Court of Admiralty. The
book Pepys refers to is Nedham's translation, which was entitled,
"Of the Dominion or Ownership of the Sea. Two Books . . . ,
written at first in Latin and entituled Mare Clausum, by John
Selden. Translated into English by Marchamont Nedham. London,
1652." This has the Commonwealth arms on the title-page and a
dedication "To the Supreme Autoritie of the Nation-The Parliament of
the Commonwealth of England." The dedication to Charles I. in
Selden's original work was left out. Apparently a new title-page
and dedication was prepared in 1663, but the copy in the British
Museum, which formerly belonged to Charles Killigrew, does not
contain these additions.]
to be changed, and the new title, dedicated to the King, to be put to it,
because I am ashamed to have the other seen dedicated to the Commonwealth.
So home and to my office till night, and so home to talk with my father,
and supper and to bed, I have not had yet one quarter of an hour's leisure
to sit down and talk with him since he came to town, nor do I know till
the holidays when I shall.
18th. Up betimes and to my office, where all the morning. At noon to
dinner. With us Mr. Creed, who has been deeply engaged at the office this
day about the ending of his accounts, wherein he is most unhappy to have
to do with a company of fools who after they have signed his accounts and
made bills upon them yet dare not boldly assert to the Treasurer that they
are satisfied with his accounts. Hereupon all dinner, and walking in the
garden the afternoon, he and I talking of the ill management of our
office, which God knows is very ill for the King's advantage. I would I
could make it better. In the evening to my office, and at night home to
supper and bed.
19th (Easter day). Up and this day put on my close-kneed coloured suit,
which, with new stockings of the colour, with belt, and new gilt-handled
sword, is very handsome. To church alone, and so to dinner, where my
father and brother Tom dined with us, and after dinner to church again, my
father sitting below in the chancel. After church done, where the young
Scotchman preaching I slept all the while, my father and I to see my uncle
and aunt Wight, and after a stay of an hour there my father to my
brother's and I home to supper, and after supper fell in discourse of
dancing, and I find that Ashwell hath a very fine carriage, which makes my
wife almost ashamed of herself to see herself so outdone, but to-morrow
she begins to learn to dance for a month or two. So to prayers and to
bed. Will being gone, with my leave, to his father's this day for a day
or two, to take physique these holydays.
20th. Up betimes as I use to do, and in my chamber begun to look over my
father's accounts, which he brought out of the country with him by my
desire, whereby I may see what he has received and spent, and I find that
he is not anything extravagant, and yet it do so far outdo his estate that
he must either think of lessening his charge, or I must be forced to spare
money out of my purse to help him through, which I would willing do as far
as L20 goes. So to my office the remaining part of the morning till
towards noon, and then to Mr. Grant's. There saw his prints, which he
shewed me, and indeed are the best collection of any things almost that
ever I saw, there being the prints of most of the greatest houses,
churches, and antiquitys in Italy and France and brave cutts. I had not
time to look them over as I ought, and which I will take time hereafter to
do, and therefore left them and home to dinner. After dinner, it raining
very hard, by coach to Whitehall, where, after Sir G. Carteret, Sir J.
Minnes, Mr. Coventry and I had been with the Duke, we to the Committee of
Tangier and did matters there dispatching wholly my Lord Teviott, and so
broke up. With Sir G. Carteret and Sir John Minnes by coach to my Lord
Treasurer's, thinking to have spoken about getting money for paying the
Yards; but we found him with some ladies at cards: and so, it being a bad
time to speak, we parted, and Sir J. Minnes and I home, and after walking
with my wife in the garden late, to supper and to bed, being somewhat
troubled at Ashwell's desiring and insisting over eagerly upon her going
to a ball to meet some of her old companions at a dancing school here in
town next Friday, but I am resolved she shall not go. So to bed. This
day the little Duke of Monmouth was marryed at White Hall, in the King's
chamber; and tonight is a great supper and dancing at his lodgings, near
Charing-Cross. I observed his coat at the tail of his coach he gives the
arms of England, Scotland, and France, quartered upon some other fields,
but what it is that speaks his being a bastard I know not.
21st. Up betimes and to my office, where first I ruled with red ink my
English "Mare Clausum," which, with the new orthodox title, makes it now
very handsome. So to business, and then home to dinner, and after dinner
to sit at the office in the afternoon, and thence to my study late, and so
home to supper to play a game at cards with my wife, and so to bed.
Ashwell plays well at cards, and will teach us to play; I wish it do not
lose too much of my time, and put my wife too much upon it.
22nd. Up betimes and to my office very busy all the morning there,
entering things into my Book Manuscript, which pleases me very much. So to
the Change, and so to my uncle Wight's, by invitation, whither my father,
wife, and Ashwell came, where we had but a poor dinner, and not well
dressed; besides, the very sight of my aunt's hands and greasy manner of
carving, did almost turn my stomach. After dinner by coach to the King's
Playhouse, where we saw but part of "Witt without mony," which I do not
like much, but coming late put me out of tune, and it costing me four
half-crowns for myself and company. So, the play done, home, and I to my
office a while and so home, where my father (who is so very melancholy)
and we played at cards, and so to supper and to bed.
23rd. St. George's day and Coronacion, the King and Court being at
Windsor, at the installing of the King of Denmark by proxy and the Duke of
Monmouth. I up betimes, and with my father, having a fire made in my
wife's new closet above, it being a wet and cold day, we sat there all the
morning looking over his country accounts ever since his going into the
country. I find his spending hitherto has been (without extraordinary
charges) at full L100 per annum, which troubles me, and I did let him
apprehend it, so as that the poor man wept, though he did make it well
appear to me that he could not have saved a farthing of it. I did tell him
how things stand with us, and did shew my distrust of Pall, both for her
good nature and housewifery, which he was sorry for, telling me that
indeed she carries herself very well and carefully, which I am glad to
hear, though I doubt it was but his doting and not being able to find her
miscarriages so well nowadays as he could heretofore have done. We
resolve upon sending for Will Stankes up to town to give us a right
understanding in all that we have in Brampton, and before my father goes
to settle every thing so as to resolve how to find a living for my father
and to pay debts and legacies, and also to understand truly how Tom's
condition is in the world, that we may know what we are like to expect of
his doing ill or well. So to dinner, and after dinner to the office,
where some of us met and did a little business, and so to Sir W. Batten's
to see a little picture drawing of his by a Dutchman which is very well
done. So to my office and put a few things in order, and so home to spend
the evening with my father. At cards till late, and being at supper, my
boy being sent for some mustard to a neat's tongue, the rogue staid half
an hour in the streets, it seems at a bonfire, at which I was very angry,
and resolve to beat him to-morrow.
24th. Up betimes, and with my salt eel
[A salt eel is a rope's end cut from the piece to be used on the
back of a culprit. "Yeow shall have salt eel for supper" is an
emphatic threat.]
went down in the parler and there got my boy and did beat him till I was
fain to take breath two or three times, yet for all I am afeard it will
make the boy never the better, he is grown so hardened in his tricks,
which I am sorry for, he being capable of making a brave man, and is a boy
that I and my wife love very well. So made me ready, and to my office,
where all the morning, and at noon home, whither came Captain Holland, who
is lately come home from sea, and has been much harassed in law about the
ship which he has bought, so that it seems in a despair he endeavoured to
cut his own throat, but is recovered it; and it seems whether by that or
any other persuasion (his wife's mother being a great zealot) he is turned
almost a Quaker, his discourse being nothing but holy, and that
impertinent, that I was weary of him. At last pretending to go to the
Change we walked thither together, and there I left him and home to
dinner, sending my boy by the way to enquire after two dancing masters at
our end of the town for my wife to learn, of whose names the boy brought
word. After dinner all the afternoon fiddling upon my viallin (which I
have not done many a day) while Ashwell danced above in my upper best
chamber, which is a rare room for musique, expecting this afternoon my
wife to bring my cozen Scott and Stradwick, but they came not, and so in
the evening we by ourselves to Half-way house to walk, but did not go in
there, but only a walk and so home again and to supper, my father with us,
and had a good lobster intended for part of our entertainment to these
people to-day, and so to cards, and then to bed, being the first day that
I have spent so much to my pleasure a great while.
25th. Up betimes and to my vyall and song book a pretty while, and so to
my office, and there we sat all the morning. Among other things Sir W.
Batten had a mind to cause Butler (our chief witness in the business of
Field, whom we did force back from an employment going to sea to come back
to attend our law sute) to be borne as a mate on the Rainbow in the Downes
in compensation for his loss for our sakes. This he orders an order to be
drawn by Mr. Turner for, and after Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten, and Sir
W. Pen had signed it, it came to me and I was going to put it up into my
book, thinking to consider of it and give them my opinion upon it before I
parted with it, but Sir W. Pen told me I must sign it or give it him
again, for it should not go without my hand. I told him what I meant to
do, whereupon Sir W. Batten was very angry, and in a great heat (which
will bring out any thing which he has in his mind, and I am glad of it,
though it is base in him to have a thing so long in his mind without
speaking of it, though I am glad this is the worst, for if he had worse it
would out as well as this some time or other) told me that I should not
think as I have heretofore done, make them sign orders and not sign them
myself. Which what ignorance or worse it implies is easy to judge, when
he shall sign to things (and the rest of the board too as appears in this
business) for company and not out of their judgment for. After some
discourse I did convince them that it was not fit to have it go, and Sir
W. Batten first, and then the rest, did willingly cancel all their hands
and tear the order, for I told them, Butler being such a rogue as I know
him, and we have all signed him to be to the Duke, it will be in his power
to publish this to our great reproach, that we should take such a course
as this to serve ourselves in wronging the King by putting him into a
place he is no wise capable of, and that in an Admiral ship. At noon we
rose, Sir W. Batten ashamed and vexed, and so home to dinner, and after
dinner walked to the old Exchange and so all along to Westminster Hall,
White Hall, my Lord Sandwich's lodgings, and going by water back to the
Temple did pay my debts in several places in order to my examining my
accounts tomorrow to my great content. So in the evening home, and after
supper (my father at my brother's) and merrily practising to dance, which
my wife hath begun to learn this day of Mr. Pembleton,
[Pembleton, the dancing-master, made Pepys very jealous, and there
are many allusions to him in the following pages. His lessons
ceased on May 27th.]
but I fear will hardly do any great good at it, because she is conceited
that she do well already, though I think no such thing. So to bed. At
Westminster Hall, this day, I buy a book lately printed and licensed by
Dr. Stradling, the Bishop of London's chaplin, being a book discovering
the practices and designs of the papists, and the fears of some of our own
fathers of the Protestant church heretofore of the return to Popery as it
were prefacing it.
The book is a very good book; but forasmuch as it touches one of the
Queenmother's fathers confessors, the Bishop, which troubles many good men
and members of Parliament, hath called it in, which I am sorry for.
Another book I bought, being a collection of many expressions of the great
Presbyterian Preachers upon publique occasions, in the late times, against
the King and his party, as some of Mr. Marshall, Case, Calamy, Baxter,
&c., which is good reading now, to see what they then did teach, and the
people believe, and what they would seem to believe now. Lastly, I did
hear that the Queen is much grieved of late at the King's neglecting her,
he having not supped once with her this quarter of a year, and almost
every night with my Lady Castlemaine; who hath been with him this St.
George's feast at Windsor, and came home with him last night; and, which
is more, they say is removed as to her bed from her own home to a chamber
in White Hall, next to the King's own; which I am sorry to hear, though I
love her much.
26th (Lord's-day). Lay pretty long in bed talking with my wife, and then
up and set to the making up of my monthly accounts, but Tom coming, with
whom I was angry for botching my camlott coat, to tell me that my father
and he would dine with me, and that my father was at our church, I got me
ready and had a very good sermon of a country minister upon "How blessed a
thing it is for brethren to live together in unity!" So home and all to
dinner, and then would have gone by coach to have seen my Lord Sandwich at
Chelsey if the man would have taken us, but he denying it we staid at
home, and I all the afternoon upon my accounts, and find myself worth full
L700, for which I bless God, it being the most I was ever yet worth in
money. In the evening (my father being gone to my brother's to lie
to-night) my wife, Ashwell, and the boy and I, and the dogg, over the
water and walked to Half-way house, and beyond into the fields, gathering
of cowslipps, and so to Half-way house, with some cold lamb we carried
with us, and there supped, and had a most pleasant walk back again,
Ashwell all along telling us some parts of their mask at Chelsey School,
which was very pretty, and I find she hath a most prodigious memory,
remembering so much of things acted six or seven years ago. So home, and
after reading my vows, being sleepy, without prayers to bed, for which God
forgive me!
27th. Up betimes and to my office, where doing business alone a good
while till people came about business to me. Will Griffin tells me this
morning that Captain Browne, Sir W. Batten's brother-in-law, is dead of a
blow given him two days ago by a seaman, a servant of his, being drunk,
with a stone striking him on the forehead, for which I am sorry, he having
a good woman and several small children. At the office all the morning,
at noon dined at home with my wife, merry, and after dinner by water to
White Hall; but found the Duke of York gone to St. James's for this
summer; and thence with Mr. Coventry, to whose chamber I went, and Sir W.
Pen up to the Duke's closett. And a good while with him about our Navy
business; and so I to White Hall, and there alone a while with my Lord
Sandwich discoursing about his debt to the Navy, wherein he hath given me
some things to resolve him in. Thence to my Lord's lodging, and thither
came Creed to me, and he and I walked a great while in the garden, and
thence to an alehouse in the market place to drink fine Lambeth ale, and
so to Westminster Hall, and after walking there a great while, home by
coach, where I found Mary gone from my wife, she being too high for her,
though a very good servant, and my boy too will be going in a few days,
for he is not for my family, he is grown so out of order and not to be
ruled, and do himself, against his brother's counsel, desire to be gone,
which I am sorry for, because I love the boy and would be glad to bring
him to good. At home with my wife and Ashwell talking of her going into
the country this year, wherein we had like to have fallen out, she
thinking that I have a design to have her go, which I have not, and to let
her stay here I perceive will not be convenient, for she expects more
pleasure than I can give her here, and I fear I have done very ill in
letting her begin to learn to dance. The Queen (which I did not know) it
seems was at Windsor, at the late St. George's feast there; and the Duke
of Monmouth dancing with her with his hat in his hand, the King came in
and kissed him, and made him put on his hat, which every body took notice
of. After being a while at my office home to supper and to bed, my Will
being come home again after being at his father's all the last week taking
physique.
28th. Up betimes and to my office, and there all the morning, only
stepped up to see my wife and her dancing master at it, and I think after
all she will do pretty well at it. So to dinner, Mr. Hunt dining with us,
and so to the office, where we sat late, and then I to my office casting
up my Lord's sea accounts over again, and putting them in order for
payment, and so home to supper and to bed.