The Diary by Samuel Pepys (children's ebooks online TXT) 📕

to my office, where we sat all the morning, and a great rant I did give to Mr. Davis, of Deptford, and others about their usage of Michell, in his Bewpers1723 which he serves in for flags, which did trouble me, but yet it was in defence of what was truth. So home to dinner, where Creed dined with me, and walked a good while in the garden with me after dinner, talking, among other things, of the poor service which Sir J. Lawson did really do in the Streights, for which all this great fame and honour done him is risen. So to my office, where all the afternoon giving maisters their warrants for this voyage, for which I hope hereafter to get something at their coming home. In the evening my wife and I and Ashwell walked in the garden, and I find she is a pretty ingenuous1724 girl at all sorts of fine work, which pleases me very well, and I hope will be very good entertainment for my wife without much cost. So to write by the post, and so home to supper and to bed.

15th (Lord’s day). Up and with my wife and her woman Ashwell the first time to church, where our pew was so full with Sir J. Minnes’s sister and her daughter, that I perceive, when we come all together, some of us must be shut out, but I suppose we shall come to some order what to do therein. Dined at home, and to church again in the afternoon, and so home, and I to my office till the evening doing one thing or other and reading my vows as I am bound every Lord’s day, and so home to supper and talk, and Ashwell is such good company that I think we shall be very lucky in her. So to prayers and to bed. This day the weather, which of late has been very hot and fair, turns very wet and cold, and all the church time this afternoon it thundered mightily, which I have not heard a great while.

16th. Up very betimes and to my office, where, with several Masters of the King’s ships, Sir J. Minnes and I advising upon the business of Slopps, wherein the seaman is so much abused by the Pursers, and that being done, then I home to dinner, and so carried my wife to her mother’s, set her down and Ashwell to my Lord’s lodging, there left her, and I to the Duke, where we met of course, and talked of our Navy matters. Then to the Commission of Tangier, and there, among other things, had my Lord Peterborough’s Commission read over; and Mr. Secretary Bennet did make his querys upon it, in order to the drawing one for my Lord Rutherford more regularly, that being a very extravagant thing. Here long discoursing upon my Lord Rutherford’s despatch, and so broke up, and so going out of the Court I met with Mr. Coventry, and so he and I walked half an hour in the long Stone Gallery, where we discoursed of many things, among others how the Treasurer doth intend to come to pay in course, which is the thing of the world that will do the King the greatest service in the Navy, and which joys my heart to hear of. He tells me of the business of Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Penn, which I knew before, but took no notice or little that I did know it. But he told me it was chiefly to make Mr. Pett’s being joined with Sir W. Batten to go down the better, and do tell me how he well sees that neither one nor the other can do their duties without help. But however will let it fall at present without doing more in it to see whether they will do their duties themselves, which he will see, and saith they do not. We discoursed of many other things to my great content and so parted, and I to my wife at my Lord’s lodgings, where I heard Ashwell play first upon the harpsicon, and I find she do play pretty well, which pleaseth me very well. Thence home by coach, buying at the Temple the printed virginal-book for her, and so home and to my office a while, and so home and to supper and to bed.

17th. Up betimes and to my office a while, and then home and to Sir W. Batten, with whom by coach to St. Margaret’s Hill in Southwark,1725 where the judge of the Admiralty came, and the rest of the Doctors of the Civil law, and some other Commissioners, whose Commission of Oyer and Terminer was read, and then the charge, given by Dr. Exton,1726 which methought was somewhat dull, though he would seem to intend it to be very rhetoricall, saying that justice had two wings, one of which spread itself over the land, and the other over the water, which was this Admiralty Court. That being done, and the jury called, they broke up, and to dinner to a tavern hard by, where a great dinner, and I with them; but I perceive that this Court is yet but in its infancy (as to its rising again), and their design and consultation was, I could overhear them, how to proceed with the most solemnity, and spend time, there being only two businesses to do, which of themselves could not spend much time. In the afternoon to the court again, where, first, Abraham, the boatswain of the King’s pleasure boat, was tried for drowning a man; and next, Turpin, accused by our wicked rogue Field, for stealing the King’s timber; but after full examination, they were both acquitted, and as I was glad of the first, for the saving the man’s life,