Chapter 34
DECEMBER 3, 1664. The Duke of York is expected to-night with great joy from Portsmouth, after his having been abroad at sea, three or four days with the fleet; and the Dutch are all drawn into their harbours. But it seems like a victory: and a matter of some reputation to us it is, and blemish to them; but in no degree like what it is esteemed at, the weather requiring them to do so.
5th. Up, and to White Hall with Sir J. Minnes; and there, among an infinite crowd of great persons, did kiss the Duke's hand; but had no time to discourse.
6th. To the Old Exchange, and there hear that the Dutch are fitting their ships out again, which puts us to new discourse, and to alter our thoughts of the Dutch, as to their want of courage or force.
15th. It seems, of all mankind there is no man so led by another as the Duke is by Lord Muskerry [Eldest son of the Earl of Cloncarty. He had served with distinction in Flanders, as colonel of an infantry regiment, and was killed on board the Duke of York's ship, in the sea fight, 1665.] and this FitzHarding. Insomuch, as when, the King would have him to be Privy-Purse, the Duke wept, and said, "But, Sir, I must have your promise, if you will have my dear Charles from me, that if ever you have an occasion for an army again, I may have him with me; believing him to be the best commander of an army in the world." But Mr. Cholmly thinks, as all other men I meet with do, that he is a very ordinary fellow. It is strange how the Duke also do love naturally, and affect the Irish above the English. He, of the company he carried with him to sea, took above two thirds Irish and French. He tells me the King do hate my Lord Chancellor; and that they, that is the King and Lord FitzHarding, do laugh at him for a dull fellow; and in all this business of the Dutch war do nothing by his advice, hardly consulting him. Only he is a good minister in other respects, and the King cannot be without him; but, above all, being the Duke's father-in-law, he is kept in; otherwise FitzHarding were able to fling down two of him. This, all the wise and grave lords see, and cannot help it; but yield to it. But he bemoans what the end of it may be, the King being ruled by these men, as he hath been all along since his coming to the rasing all the strong-holds in Scotland, and giving liberty to the Irish in Ireland, whom Cromwell had settled all in one corner; who are now able, and it is feared every day a massacre beginning among them.
17th. Mighty talk there is of this Comet that is seen a'nights; and the King and Queene did sit up last night to see it, and did, it seems. And to-night I thought to have done so too; but it is cloudy, and so no stars appear. But I will endeavour it. Mr. Gray did tell me to-night, for certain, that the Dutch, as high as they seem, do begin to buckle; and that one man in this kingdom did tell the King that he is offered 40,000l. to make a peace, and others have been offered money also. It seems the taking of their Bourdeaux fleet thus, arose from a printed Gazette of the Dutch's boasting of fighting, and having beaten the English: in confidence whereof, (it coming to Bourdeaux,) all the fleet comes out, and so falls into our hands.
19th. With Sir J. Minnes to White Hall, and there we waited on the Duke. And among other things Mr. Coventry took occasion to vindicate himself before the Duke and us, being ill there, about the choosing of Taylor for Harwich. [Silas Taylor, Storekeeper at Harwich.] Upon which the Duke did clear him, and did tell us that he did expect, that, after he had named a man, none of us shall then oppose or find fault with the man; but if we had any thing to say, we ought to say it before he had chose him. Sir G. Carteret thought himself concerned, and endeavoured to clear himself: and by and by Sir W. Batten did speak, knowing himself guilty, and did confess, that being pressed by the Council he did say what he did, that he was accounted a fanatique; but did not know that at that time he had been appointed by his Royal Highness. To which the Duke: that it was impossible but he must know that he had appointed him; and so it did appear that the Duke did mean all this while Sir W. Batten.
21st. My Lord Sandwich this day writes me word that he hath seen (at Portsmouth) the Comet, and says it is the most extraordinary thing he ever saw.
22nd. Met with a copy of verses, mightily commended by some gentlemen there, of my Lord Mordaunt's, [Vide Note, Nov. 26, 1666.] in excuse of his going to sea this late expedition, with the Duke of York. But Lord! they are sorry things; only a Lord made them. Thence to the 'Change; and there, among the merchants, I hear fully the news of our being beaten to dirt at Guinny, by De Ruyter with his fleet. The particulars, as much as by Sir G. Carteret afterwards I heard, I have said in a letter to my Lord Sandwich this day at Portsmouth; it being meet wholly to the utter ruine of our Royall Company, and reproach and shame to the whole nation, as well as justification to them in their doing wrong to no man as to his private property, only taking whatever is found to belong to the Company, and nothing else. To Redriffe; and just in time within two minutes, and saw the new vessel of Sir William Petty's launched, the King and Duke being there. It swims and looks finely, and I believe will do well.
24th. At noon to the 'Change, to the Coffee-house; and there heard Sir Richard Ford tell the whole story of our defeat at Guinny. Wherein our men are guilty of the most horrid cowardice and perfidiousness, as he says and tells it, that ever Englishmen were. Captain Reynolds, that was the only commander of any of the King's ships there, was shot at by De Ruyter, with a bloody flag flying. He, instead of opposing (which, indeed, had been to no purpose, but only to maintain honour) did poorly go on board himself, to ask what De Ruyter would have; and so yield to whatever Ruyter would desire. The King and Duke are highly vexed at it, it seems, and the business deserves it. I saw the Comet, which is now, whether worn away or no I know not, but appears not with a tail, but only is larger and duller than any other star, and is come to rise betimes, and to make a great arch, and is gone quite to a new place in the heavens than it was before: but I hope in a clearer night something more will be seen.
28th. To Sir W. Pen's to his Lady, [Margaret, daughter of John Jasper, a merchant at Rotterdam.] who is a well-looked, fat, short, old Dutch woman; but one that hath been heretofore pretty handsome, and is I believe very discreet, and hath more wit than her husband.
31st. Public matters are all in a hurry about a Dutch warr. Our preparations great; our provocations against them great; and after all our presumption, we are now afraid as much of them, as we lately contemned them. Every thing else in the State quiet, blessed be God! My Lord Sandwich at sea with the fleet at Portsmouth; sending some about to cruise for taking of ships, which we have done to a great number. This Christmas I judged it fit to look over all my papers and books; and to tear all that I found either boyish or not to be worth keeping, or fit to be seen, if it should please God to take me away suddenly among others, I found these two or three notes, which I thought fit to keep.
AGE OF MY GRANDFATHER'S CHILDREN
Thomas, 1595. Mary, March 16, 1597. Edith, October 11, 1599. John, (my Father,) January 14, 1601. My father and mother marryed at Newington, in Surry, Oct, 15, 1626
THEYR CHILDREN'S AGES. Mary, July 24, 1627. mort. [The word "mort" must have been in some instances added long after the entry was first made.] Paulina, Sept. 18, 1628. mort. Esther, March 27, 1630. mort. John, January 16, 1631. mort. Samuel, Feb. 23, 1632. [To this name is affixed the following note:--Went to reside in Magd. Coll. Camb, and did put on my gown first, March 5 1650-1.] Thomas, June 18, 1634. mort. Sarah, August 25, 1635. mort. Jacob, May 1, 1637. mort. Robert, Nov. 18, 1638. mort. Paulina, Oct. 18, 1640. John, Nov. 26, 1641. mort. December 31, 1664.
CHARMES.
FOR STENCHING OF BLOOD.
Sanguis mane in te, Sicut Christus fuit in se; Sanguis mane in tua vena Sicut Christus in sua poena; Sanguis mane fixus, Sicut Christus quando fuit crucifixus,
2. A THORNE.
Jesus, that was of a Virgin born, Was pricked both with nail and thorn; It neither wealed nor belled, rankled nor boned In the name of Jesus no more shall this.
Or, thus:--
Christ was of a Virgin born; And he was pricked with a thorn; And it did neither bell, nor swell, And I trust in Jesus this never will.
3. A CRAMP.
Cramp be thou faintless, As our Lady was sinless, When she bare Jesus.
4. A BURNING.
There came three Angells out of the East; The one brought fire, the other brought frost-- Out fire; in frost. In the name of the Father and Son, and Holy Ghost. AMEN.
1664-5. (JANUARY 2.) To my Lord Brouncker's, by appointment, in the Piazza, in Covent-Garden; where I occasioned much mirth with a ballet [The Earl of Dorset's song, "To all ye ladies now at land," &c.] I brought with me, made from the seamen at sea to their ladies in town; saying Sir W. Pen, Sir G. Ascue, and Sir J. Lawson made them. Here a most noble French dinner and banquet. The street full of footballs, it being a great frost.
4th. To my Lord of Oxford's, but his Lordship was in bed at past ten o'clock: and, Lord help us! so rude a dirty family I never saw in my life.
9th. I saw the Royal Society bring their new book, wherein is nobly writ their charter and laws, and comes to be signed by the Duke as a Fellow; and all the Fellows' hands are to be entered there, and lie as a monument; and the King hath put his with the word Founder. Holmes was this day sent to the Tower, but I perceive it is made matter of jest only; but if the Dutch should be our masters, it may come to be of earnest to him, to be given over to them for a sacrifice, as Sir W. Rawly was. To a Tangier committee, where I was accosted and most highly complimented by my Lord Bellasses, our new governor, beyond my expectation; and I may make good use of it. Our patent is renewed, and he and my Lord Barkeley, and Sir Thomas Ingram [Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and a Privy Counsellor. Ob. 1671.] put in as commissioners.
11th. This evening, by a letter from Plymouth, I hear that two of our ships, the Leopard and another, in the Straights, are lost by running aground; and that three more had like to have been so, but got off, whereof Captain Allen one: and that a Dutch fleet are gone thither; and if they should meet with our lame ships, God knows what would become of them. This I reckon most sad news; God make us sensible of it!
12th. Spoke with a Frenchman who was taken, but released, by a Dutch man-of-war of thirty-six guns, (with seven more of the King's or greater ships), off the North Foreland, by Margett. Which is a strange attempt, that they should come to our teeth; but the wind being easterly, the wind that should bring our force from Portsmouth, will carry them away home.
13th. Yesterday's news confirmed, though a little different; but a couple of ships in the Straights we have lost, and the Dutch have been in Margret Road. [QUERY Margate.]
14th. To the King's house, there to see Vulpone, [A Comedy by Ben Jonson.] a most excellent play: the best I think I ever saw, and well acted.
15th. With Sir W. Pen in his coach to my Lord Chancellor's, where by and by Mr. Coventry, Sir W. Pen, Sir J. Lawson, Sir G. Ascue, and myself were called in to the King, there being several of the Privy Council, and my Lord Chancellor lying at length upon a couch (of the goute I suppose); and there Sir W. Pen spoke pretty well to dissuade the King from letting the Turkey ships go out: saying (in short) the King having resolved to have 130 ships out by the spring, he must have above 20 of them merchantmen. Towards which, he in the whole River could find but 12 or 14, and of them the five ships taken up by these merchants were a part, and so could not be spared. That we should need 30,000 sailors to man these 130 ships, and of them in service we have not above 16,000: so that we shall need 14,000 more. That these ships will with their convoys carry about 2000 men, and those the best men that could be got; it being the men used to the Southward that are the best men of warr, though those bred in the North among the colliers are good for labour. That it will not be safe for the merchants, nor honourable for the King, to expose these rich ships with his convoy of six ships to go, it not being enough to secure them against the Dutch, who, without doubt, will have a great fleet in the Straights. This, Sir J.Lawson enlarged upon. Sir G. Ascue chiefly spoke that the warr and trade could not be supported together. Mr. Coventry showed how the medium of the men the King hath one year with another employed in his Navy since his coming, hath not been above 3000 men, or at most 4000 men; and now having occasion of 30,000, the remaining 26,000 must be found out of the trade of the nation. He showed how the cloaths, sending by these merchants to Turkey, are already bought and paid for to the workmen, and are as many as they would send these twelve months or more; so the poor do not suffer by their not going, but only the merchant, upon whose hands they lie dead; and so the inconvenience is the less. And yet for them he propounded, either the King should, if his Treasurer would suffer it, buy them, and showed the loss would not be so great to him: or, dispense with the Act of Navigation, and let them be carried out by strangers; and ending that he doubted not but when the merchants saw there was no remedy, they would and could find ways of sending them abroad to their profit. All ended with a conviction (unless future discourse with the merchants should alter it,) that it was not fit for them to go out, though the ships be loaded. So we withdrew, and the merchants were called in. Staying without, my Lord FitzHarding come thither, and fell to discourse of Prince Rupert's disease, [Morbus, scil, Gallicus.] telling the horrible degree of its breaking out on his head. He observed also from the Prince, that courage is not what men take it to be, a contempt of death; for, says he, how chagrined the Prince was the other day when he thought he should die.
16th. To a Tangier committee, where my Lord Ashly, I observe, is a most clear man in matters of accounts, and most ingeniously did discourse and explain all matters.
19th, This day was buried; (but I could not be there) my cosen Percivall Angler: and yesterday I received the news that Dr. Tom Pepys is dead, at Impington.
21st. Mr. Povy carried me to Somerset House, and there showed me the Queene-Mother's chamber and closet, most beautiful places for furniture and pictures; and so down the great stone stairs to the garden, and tried the brave echo upon the stairs; which continues a voice so long as the singing three notes, concords, one after another, they all three shall sound in consort together a good while most pleasantly.
23rd. Up, and with Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen to White Hall; but there finding the Duke gone to his lodgings in St, James's for alltogether, his Duchesse being ready to lie in, we to him, and there did our usual business. and here I met the great news confirmed by the Duke's own relation, by a letter from Captain Allen. First, of our own loss of two ships, the Phoenix and Nonsuch, in the Bay of Gibraltar: then of his and his seven ships with him, in the Bay of Cales, or thereabouts, fighting with the 34 Dutch Smyrna fleet; sinking the King Salamon, a ship worth a 150,000l. or more, some say 200,000l. and another; and taking of three merchant-ships. Two of our ships were disabled, by the Dutch unfortunately falling against their will against them; the Advice, Captain W. Poole, and Antelope, Captain Clerke. The Dutch men of war did little service. Captain Allen, before he would fire one gun, come within pistol-shot of the enemy. The Spaniards, at Cales, did stand laughing at the Dutch, to see them run away and flee to the shore, 34 or thereabouts, against eight Englishmen at most. I do purpose to get the whole relation, if I live, of Captain Allen himself. In our loss of the two ships in the Bay of Gibraltar, the world do comment upon the misfortune of Captain Moone of the Nonsuch, (who did lose, in the same manner, the Satisfaction,) as a person that hath ill-luck attending him; without-considering that the whole fleet was ashore. Captain Allen led the way, and himself writes that all the masters of the fleet, old and young, were mistaken, and did carry their ships aground. But I think I heard the Duke say that Moone, being put into Oxford, had in this conflict regained his credit, by sinking one and taking another. Captain Seale of the Milford hath done his part very well, in boarding the King Salamon, which held out half an hour after she was boarded; and his men kept her an hour after they did master her, and then she sunk, and drowned about 17 of her men.
24th. The Dutch have, by consent of all the Provinces, voted no trade to be suffered for eighteen months, but that they apply themselves wholly to the war. [This statement of a total prohibition of all trade, and for so long a period as eighteen months, by a government so essentially commercial as that of the United Provinces seems extraordinary. The fact, as I am informed, was, that when in the beginning of the year 1665 the States General saw that the war with England was become inevitable, they took several vigorous measures, and determined to equip a formidable fleet, and with a view to obtain a sufficient number of men to man it, prohibited all navigation, especially in the great and small fisheries as they were then called, and in the Whale fishery. This measure appears to have resembled the embargoes so commonly resorted to in this country on similar occasions, rather than a total prohibition of trade.]
27th. Mr. Slingsby, a very ingenious person about the Mint, tells me that the money passing up and down in business is 700,000l. He also made me fully understand that the old law of prohibiting bullion to be exported, is, and ever was a folly and an injury, rather than good.
FEBRUARY 3, 1664-65. To visit my Lady Sandwich, and she discoursed largely to me her opinion of a match, if it could be thought fit by my Lord, for my Lady Jemimah, with Sir G. Carteret's eldest son; but I doubt he hath yet no settled estate in land. But I will inform myself, and give her my opinion. Then Mrs. Pickering (after private discourse ended, we going into the other room) did, at my Lady's command, tell me the manner of a masquerade before the King and the Court the other day. Where six women (my Lady Castlermaine and Duchesse of Monmouth being two of them,) and six men, (the Duke of Monmouth and Lord Avon and Monsieur Blanfort, [Lewis Duras, Marquis de Blanquefort, naturalized 17th Charles II., and created Baron Duras 1672 and K.G. by James II., whom he had attended in the sea-fight 1665, as Captain of the guard.] being three of them) in vizards, but most rich and antique dresses, did dance admirably and most gloriously. God give us cause to continue the mirth!
4th. I to the Sun behind the 'Change, to dinner to my Lord Belasses, He told us a very handsome passage of the King's sending him his message about holding out the town of Newarke, of which he was then governor for the King. This message he sent in a slugg-bullet, being writ in cipher, and wrapped up in lead and sealed. So the messenger come to my Lord and told him he had a message from the King, but it was yet in his belly; so they did give him some physick, and out it come. This was a month before the King's flying to the Scots; and therein he told him that at such a day, the 3rd or 6th of May, he should hear of his being come to the Scots, being assured by the King of France that in coming to them he should be used with all the liberty, honour, and safety, that could be desired. And at the just day he did come to the Scots. He told us another odd passage: how the King having newly put out Prince Rupert of his generalship, upon some miscarriage at Bristol, and Sir Richard Willis of his governorship of Newarke, at the entreaty of the gentry of the County, and put in my Lord Bellasses; the great officers of the King's army mutinyed, and come in that manner with swords drawn, into the market-place of the town where the King was; which the King hearing says, "I must horse." And there himself personally, when everybody expected they should have been opposed, the King come, and cried to the head of the mutineers, which was Prince Rupert, "Nephew I command you to be gone." So the Prince, in all his fury and discontent, withdrew, and his company scattered.
6th. One of the coldest days, all say, they ever felt in England.
9th. Sir William Petty tells me that Mr. Barlow [Mr. Pepys' predecessor as Clerk of the acts, to whom he paid part of the salary.] is dead; for which, God knows my heart, I could be as sorry as is possible for one to be for a stranger, by whose death he gets 100l. per annum.
12th. To Church to St. Lawrence to hear Dr. Wilkins, the great scholar, for curiosity, I having never heard him: but was not satisfied with him at all.
15th. At noon, with Creed to the Trinity-house, where a very good dinner among the old jokers, and an extraordinary discourse of the manner of the loss of the Royall Oake coming home from Bantam, upon the rocks of Scilly. Thence with Creed to Gresham College, where I had been by Mr. Povy the last week proposed to be admitted a member; and was this day admitted, by signing a book and being taken by the hand by the President, my Lord Brouncker, and some words of admittance said to me. But it is a most acceptable thing to hear their discourse, and see their experiments; which were this day on fire, and how it goes out in a place where the ayre is not free, and sooner out where the ayre is exhausted, which they showed by an engine on purpose. After this being done, they to the Crown Tavern, behind the 'Change, and there my Lord and most of the company to a club supper; Sir P. Neale, [Sir Paul Neile, of White Waltham, Berks, eldest son to Neile, Archbishop of York.] Sir R. Murrey, [One of the Founders of the Royal Society, made a Privy Counsellor for Scotland after the Restoration.] Dr. Clerke, Dr. Whistler, [Daniel Whistler, Fellow of Merton College, took the degree of M.D. at Leyden, 1645; and after practising in London, went as Physician to the Embassy, with Bulstrode Whitlock, into Sweden. On his return he became Fellow, and at length President, of the College of Physicians. Ob. 1684.] Dr. Goddard, [Jonathan Goddard, M.D., F.R.S. He had been Physician to Cromwell.] and others, of the most eminent worth. Above all, Mr. Boyle was at the meeting, and above him Mr. Hooke, who is the most, and promises the least, of any man in the world that ever I saw. Here excellent discourse till ten at night, and then home.
17th. Povy tells me how my Lord Barkeley will say openly, that he hath fought more set fields than any man in England hath done.