22nd September

Saturday, 22nd September 1660

22nd. This morning I called up my boy, and found him a pretty, well-looked boy, and one that I think will please me. I went this morning by land to Westminster along with Luellin, who came to my house this morning to get me to go with him to Capt. Allen to speak with him for his brother to go with him to Constantinople, but could not find him. We walked on to Fleet street, where at Mr. Standing's in Salsbury Court we drank our morning draft and had a pickled herring. Among other discourse here he told me how the pretty woman that I always loved at the beginning of Cheapside that sells child's coats was served by the Lady Bennett (a famous strumpet), who by counterfeiting to fall into a swoon upon the sight of her in her shop, became acquainted with her, and at last got her ends of her to lie with a gentleman that had hired her to procure this poor soul for him. To Westminster to my Lord's, and there in the house of office vomited up all my breakfast, my stomach being ill all this day by reason of the last night's debauch. Here I sent to Mr. Bowyer's for my chest and put up my books and sent them home. I staid here all day in my Lord's chamber and upon the leads gazing upon Diana, who looked out of a window upon me. At last I went out to Mr. Harper's, and she standing over the way at the gate, I went over to her and appointed to meet to-morrow in the afternoon at my Lord's. Here I bought a hanging jack. From thence by coach home by the way at the New Exchange    In the Strand; built, under the auspices of James I., in 1608, out of the stables of Durham House, the site of the present Adelphi. The New Exchange stood where Coutts's banking-house now is. "It was built somewhat on the model of the Royal Exchange, with cellars beneath, a walk above, and rows of shops over that, filled chiefly with milliners, sempstresses, and the like." It was also called "Britain's Burse." "He has a lodging in the Strand . . . to watch when ladies are gone to the china houses, or to the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds worth of toys, to be laughed at"--Ben Jonson, The Silent Woman, act i. sc. 1.
I bought a pair of short black stockings, to wear over a pair of silk ones for mourning; and here I met with The. Turner and Joyce, buying of things to go into mourning too for the Duke, which is now the mode of all the ladies in town), where I wrote some letters by the post to Hinchinbroke to let them know that this day Mr. Edw. Pickering is come from my Lord, and says that he left him well in Holland, and that he will be here within three or four days. To-day not well of my last night's drinking yet. I had the boy up to-night for his sister to teach him to put me to bed, and I heard him read, which he did pretty well.

Sunday, 22nd September 1661

22nd (Lord's day). Before church time walking with my father in the garden contriving. So to church, where we had common prayer, and a dull sermon by one Mr. Case, who yet I heard sing very well. So to dinner, and busy with my father about his accounts all the afternoon, and people came to speak with us about business. Mr. Barnwell at night came and supped with us. So after setting matters even with my father and I, to bed.

Monday, 22nd September 1662

22nd. Up betimes among my workmen, hastening to get things ready against my wife's coming, and so with Sir J. M., Sir W. B., and Sir W. P., by coach to St. James's, and there with the Duke. I did give him an account of all things past of late; but I stood in great pain, having a great fit of the colic, having catched cold yesterday by putting off my stockings to wipe my toes, but at last it lessened, and then I was pretty well again, but in pain all day more or less. Thence I parted from them and walked to Greatorex's, and there with him did overlook many pretty things, new inventions, and have bespoke a weather glass of him. Thence to my Lord Crew's, and dined with the servants, he having dined; and so, after dinner, up to him, and sat an hour talking with him of publique, and my Lord's private businesses, with much content. So to my brother Tom's, where Mr. Cooke expected me, and did go with me to see Mr. Young and Mr. Lull in Blackfryers, kindred of Tom's mistress, where I was very well used, and do find things to go in the business to my good content. Thence to Mr. Townsend, and did there talk with Mr. Young himself also, and then home and to my study, and so to my lodgings and to bed.

Tuesday, 22nd September 1663

22nd. I up, well refreshed after my journey, and to my office and there set some things in order, and then Sir W. Pen and I met and held an office, and at noon to dinner, and so by water with my wife to Westminster, she to see her father and mother, and we met again at my Lord's lodgings, and thence by water home again, where at the door we met Sir W. Pen and his daughter coming to visit us, and after their visit I to my office, and after some discourse to my great satisfaction with Sir W. Warren about our bargain of masts, I wrote my letters by the post, and so home to supper and to bed. This day my wife showed me bills printed, wherein her father, with Sir John Collidon and Sir Edward Ford, have got a patent for curing of smoky chimneys.    The Patent numbered 138 is printed in the appendix to Wheatley's "Samuel Pepys and the World he lived in" (p. 241). It is drawn in favour of John Colladon, Doctor in Physicke, and of Alexander Marchant, of St. Michall, and describes "a way to prevent and cure the smoakeing of Chimneys, either by stopping the tunnell towards the top, and altering the former course of the smoake, or by setting tunnells with checke within the chimneyes." Sir Edward Ford's name does not appear in the patent.

I wish they may do good thereof, but fear it will prove but a poor project. This day the King and Queen are to come to Oxford. I hear my Lady Castlemaine is for certain gone to Oxford to meet him, having lain within here at home this week or two, supposed to have miscarried; but for certain is as great in favour as heretofore;    According to Collins, Henry Fitzroy, Lady Castlemaine's second son by Charles II., was born on September 20th, 1663. He was the first Duke of Grafton.--B.
at least Mrs. Sarah at my Lord's, who hears all from their own family, do say so. Every day brings newes of the Turke's advance into Germany, to the awakeing of all the Christian Princes thereabouts, and possessing himself of Hungary. My present care is fitting my wife's closett and my house, and making her a velvet coate, and me a new black cloth suit, and coate and cloake, and evening my reckoning as well as I can against Michaelmas Day, hoping for all that to have my balance as great or greater than ever I had yet.

Thursday, 22nd September 1664

22nd. Up and at the office all the morning. To the 'Change at noon, and among other things discoursed with Sir William Warren what I might do to get a little money by carrying of deales to Tangier, and told him the opportunity I have there of doing it, and he did give me some advice, though not so good as he would have done at any other time of the year, but such as I hope to make good use of, and get a little money by. So to Sir G. Carteret's to dinner, and he and I and Captain Cocke all alone, and good discourse, and thence to a Committee of Tangier at White Hall, and so home, where I found my wife not well, and she tells me she thinks she is with child, but I neither believe nor desire it. But God's will be done! So to my office late, and home to supper and to bed; having got a strange cold in my head, by flinging off my hat at dinner, and sitting with the wind in my neck.    In Lord Clarendon's Essay, "On the decay of respect paid to Age," he says that in his younger days he never kept his hat on before those older than himself, except at dinner.--B.

Friday, 22nd September 1665

22nd. Up betimes and to the office, meaning to have entered my last 5 or 6 days' Journall, but was called away by my Lord Bruncker and Sir J. Minnes, and to Blackwall, there to look after the storehouses in order to the laying of goods out of the East India ships when they shall be unloaden. That being done, we into Johnson's house, and were much made of, eating and drinking. But here it is observable what he tells us, that in digging his late Docke, he did 12 foot under ground find perfect trees over-covered with earth. Nut trees, with the branches and the very nuts upon them; some of whose nuts he showed us. Their shells black with age, and their kernell, upon opening, decayed, but their shell perfectly hard as ever. And a yew tree he showed us (upon which, he says, the very ivy was taken up whole about it), which upon cutting with an addes    adze
, we found to be rather harder than the living tree usually is. They say, very much, but I do not know how hard a yew tree naturally is.    The same discovery was made in 1789, in digging the Brunswick Dock, also at Blackwall, and elsewhere in the neighbourhood.

The armes, they say, were taken up at first whole, about the body, which is very strange. Thence away by water, and I walked with my Lord Bruncker home, and there at dinner comes a letter from my Lord Sandwich to tell me that he would this day be at Woolwich, and desired me to meet him. Which fearing might have lain in Sir J. Minnes' pocket a while, he sending it me, did give my Lord Bruncker, his mistress, and I occasion to talk of him as the most unfit man for business in the world. Though at last afterwards I found that he was not in this faulty, but hereby I have got a clear evidence of my Lord Bruncker's opinion of him. My Lord Bruncker presently ordered his coach to be ready and we to Woolwich, and my Lord Sandwich not being come, we took a boat and about a mile off met him in his Catch, and boarded him, and come up with him; and, after making a little halt at my house, which I ordered, to have my wife see him, we all together by coach to Mr. Boreman's, where Sir J. Minnes did receive him very handsomely, and there he is to lie; and Sir J. Minnes did give him on the sudden, a very handsome supper and brave discourse, my Lord Bruncker, and Captain Cocke, and Captain Herbert being there, with myself. Here my Lord did witness great respect to me, and very kind expressions, and by other occasions, from one thing to another did take notice how I was overjoyed at first to see the King's letter to his Lordship, and told them how I did kiss it, and that, whatever he was, I did always love the King. This my Lord Bruncker did take such notice    of
as that he could not forbear kissing me before my Lord, professing his finding occasion every day more and more to love me, and Captain Cocke has since of himself taken notice of that speech of my Lord then concerning me, and may be of good use to me. Among other discourse concerning long life, Sir J. Minnes saying that his great-grandfather was alive in Edward the Vth's time; my Lord Sandwich did tell us how few there have been of his family since King Harry the VIIIth; that is to say, the then Chiefe Justice, and his son the Lord Montagu, who was father to Sir Sidney,    These are the words in the MS., and not "his son and the Lord Montagu," as in some former editions. Pepys seems to have written Lord Montagu by mistake for Sir Edward Montagu.
who was his father. And yet, what is more wonderfull, he did assure us from the mouth of my Lord Montagu himself, that in King James's time (    when he
had a mind to get the King to cut off the entayle of some land which was given in Harry the VIIIth's time to the family, with the remainder in the Crowne); he did answer the King in showing how unlikely it was that ever it could revert to the Crown, but that it would be a present convenience to him; and did show that at that time there were 4,000 persons derived from the very body of the Chiefe Justice. It seems the number of daughters in the family having been very great, and they too had most of them many children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. This he tells as a most known and certain truth. After supper, my Lord Bruncker took his leave, and I also did mine, taking Captain Herbert home to my lodging to lie with me, who did mighty seriously inquire after who was that in the black dress with my wife yesterday, and would not believe that it was my wife's mayde, Mercer, but it was she.

Saturday, 22nd September 1666

22nd. To my closet, and had it new washed, and now my house is so clean as I never saw it, or any other house in my life, and every thing in as good condition as ever before the fire; but with, I believe, about £20 cost one way or other besides about £20 charge in removing my goods, and do not find that I have lost any thing but two little pictures of ship and sea, and a little gold frame for one of my sea-cards. My glazier, indeed, is so full of worke that I cannot get him to come to perfect my house. To the office, and there busy now for good and all about my accounts. My Lord Brunck come thither, thinking to find an office, but we have not yet met. He do now give me a watch, a plain one, in the roome of my former watch with many motions which I did give him. If it goes well, I care not for the difference in worth, though believe there is above £5. He and I to Sir G. Carteret to discourse about his account, but Mr. Waith not being there nothing could be done, and therefore I home again, and busy all day. In the afternoon comes Anthony Joyce to see me, and with tears told me his losse, but yet that he had something left that he can live well upon, and I doubt it not. But he would buy some place that he could have and yet keepe his trade where he is settled in St. Jones's. He gone, I to the office again, and then to Sir G. Carteret, and there found Mr. Wayth, but, Lord! how fretfully Sir G. Carteret do discourse with Mr. Wayth about his accounts, like a man that understands them not one word. I held my tongue and let him go on like a passionate foole. In the afternoon I paid for the two lighters that carried my goods to Deptford, and they cost me £8. Till past midnight at our accounts, and have brought them to a good issue, so as to be ready to meet Sir G. Carteret and Sir W. Coventry to-morrow, but must work to-morrow, which Mr. T. Hater had no mind to, it being the Lord's day, but, being told the necessity, submitted, poor man! This night writ for brother John to come to towne. Among other reasons, my estate lying in money, I am afeard of any sudden miscarriage. So to bed mightily contented in dispatching so much business, and find my house in the best condition that ever I knew it. Home to bed.

Sunday, 22nd September 1667

22nd (Lord's day). At my chamber all the morning making up some accounts, to my great content. At noon comes Mr. Sheres, whom I find a good, ingenious man, but do talk a little too much of his travels. He left my Lord Sandwich well, but in pain to be at home for want of money, which comes very hardly. Most of the afternoon talking of Spain, and informing him against his return how things are here, and so spent most of the afternoon, and then he parted, and then to my chamber busy till my eyes were almost blind with writing and reading, and I was fain to get the boy to come and write for me, and then to supper, and Pelling come to me at supper, and then to sing a Psalm with him, and so parted and to bed, after my wife had read some thing to me (to save my eyes) in a good book. This night I did even my accounts of the house, which I have to my great shame omitted now above two months or more, and therefore am content to take my wife's and mayd's accounts as they give them, being not able to correct them, which vexes me; but the fault being my own, contrary to my wife's frequent desires, I cannot find fault, but am resolved never to let them come to that pass again. The truth is, I have indulged myself more in pleasure for these last two months than ever I did in my life before, since I come to be a person concerned in business; and I doubt, when I come to make up my accounts, I shall find it so by the expence.

Tuesday, 22nd September 1668

22nd. Up, and to the Office, where sitting all the morning at noon, home to dinner, with my people, and so to the Office again, where busy all the afternoon, and in the evening spent my time walking in the dark, in the garden, to favour my eyes, which I find nothing but ease to help. In the garden there comes to me my Lady Pen and Mrs. Turner and Markham, and we sat and talked together, and I carried them home, and there eat a bit of something, and by and by comes Sir W. Pen, and eat with us, and mighty merry-in appearance, at least, he being on all occasions glad to be at friendship with me, though we hate one another, and know it on both sides. They gone, Mrs. Turner and I to walk in the garden . . . . So led her home, and I back to bed. This day Mr. Wren did give me, at the Board, Commissioner Middleton's answer to the Duke of York's great letter; so that now I have all of them.