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Samuel Pepys
Published by Good Press, 2019
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29th. Up betimes, and by coach to Sir W. Coventry, whom I found in his chamber, and there stayed an hour and talked with him about several things of the Navy, and our want of money, which they indeed do supply us with a little, but in no degree likely to enable us to go on with the King's service. He is at a stand where to have more, and is in mighty pain for it, declaring that he believes there never was a kingdom so governed as this was in the time of the late Chancellor and the Treasurer, nobody minding or understanding any thing how things went or what the King had in his Treasury, or was to have, nothing in the world of it minded. He tells me that there are still people desirous to overthrow him; he resolving to stick at nothing nor no person that stands in his way against bringing the King out of debt, be it to retrench any man's place or profit, and that he cares not, for rather than be employed under the King, and have the King continue in this condition of indigence, he desires to be put out from among them, thinking it no honour to be a minister in such a government. He tells me he hath no friends in the whole Court but my Lord Keeper and Sir John Duncomb. He tells me they have reduced the charges of Ireland above £70,000 a-year, and thereby cut off good profits from my Lord Lieutenant; which will make a new enemy, but he cares not. He tells me that Townsend, of the Wardrobe, is the eeriest knave and bufflehead that ever he saw in his life, and wonders how my Lord Sandwich come to trust such a fellow, and that now Reames and————are put in to be overseers there, and do great things, and have already saved a great deal of money in the King's liverys, and buy linnen so cheap, that he will have them buy the next cloth he hath, for shirts. But then this is with ready money, which answers all. He do not approve of my letter I drew and the office signed yesterday to the Commissioners of Accounts, saying that it is a little too submissive, and grants a little too much and too soon our bad managements, though we lay on want of money, yet that it will be time enough to plead it when they object it. Which was the opinion of my Lord Anglesey also; so I was ready to alter it, and did so presently, going from him home, and there transcribed it fresh as he would have it, and got it signed, and to White Hall presently and shewed it him, and so home, and there to dinner, and after dinner all the afternoon and till 12 o'clock at night with Mr. Gibson at home upon my Tangier accounts, and did end them fit to be given the last of them to the Auditor to-morrow, to my great content. This evening come Betty Turner and the two Mercers, and W. Batelier, and they had fiddlers, and danced, and kept a quarter—[A term for making a noise or disturbance.]—which pleased me, though it disturbed me; but I could not be with them at all. Mr. Gibson lay at my house all night, it was so late.
30th. Up, it being fast day for the King's death, and so I and Mr. Gibson by water to the Temple, and there all the morning with Auditor Wood, and I did deliver in the whole of my accounts and run them over in three hours with full satisfaction, and so with great content thence, he and I, and our clerks, and Mr. Clerke, the solicitor, to a little ordinary in Hercules-pillars Ally—the Crowne, a poor, sorry place, where a fellow, in twelve years, hath gained an estate of, as he says, £600 a-year, which is very strange, and there dined, and had a good dinner, and very good discourse between them, old men belonging to the law, and here I first heard that my cozen Pepys, of Salisbury Court, was Marshal to my Lord Cooke when he was Lord Chief justice; which beginning of his I did not know to be so low: but so it was, it seems. After dinner I home, calling at my bookbinder's, but he not within. When come home, I find Kate Joyce hath been there, with sad news that her house stands not in the King's liberty, but the Dean of Paul's; and so, if her estate be forfeited, it will not be in the King's power to do her any good. So I took coach and to her, and there found her in trouble, as I cannot blame her. But I do believe this arises from somebody that hath a mind to fright her into a composition for her estate, which I advise her against; and, indeed, I do desire heartily to be able to do her service, she being, methinks, a piece of care I ought to take upon me, for our fathers' and friends' sake, she being left alone, and no friend so near as me, or so able to help her. After having given her my advice, I home, and there to my office and did business, and hear how the Committee for Accounts are mighty active and likely to examine every thing, but let them do their worst I am to be before them with our contract books to-morrow. So home from the office, to supper, and to bed.
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