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

would now and then take occasion to let the world know that I will not be made a novice. Sir W. Penn took occasion to speak about my wife’s strangeness to him and his daughter, and that believing at last that it was from his taking of Sarah to be his maid, he hath now put her away, at which I am glad. He told me, that this day the King hath sent to the House his concurrence wholly with them against the Popish priests, Jesuits, etc., which gives great content, and I am glad of it. So home, whither my father comes and dines with us, and being willing to be merry with him I made myself so as much as I could, and so to the office, where we sat all the afternoon, and at night having done all my business I went home to my wife and father, and supped, and so to bed, my father lying with me in Ashwell’s bed in the red chamber.

3rd. Waked betimes and talked half an hour with my father, and so I rose and to my office, and about 9 o’clock by water from the Old Swan to Whitehall and to chapel, which being most monstrous full, I could not go into my pew, but sat among the quire. Dr. Creeton, the Scotchman, preached a most admirable, good, learned, honest and most severe sermon, yet comicall, upon the words of the woman concerning the Virgin, “Blessed is the womb that bare thee (meaning Christ) and the paps that gave thee suck; and he answered, Nay; rather is he blessed that heareth the word of God, and keepeth it.” He railed bitterly ever and anon against John Calvin, and his brood, the Presbyterians, and against the present term, now in use, of “tender consciences.” He ripped up Hugh Peters1742 (calling him the execrable skellum),1743 his preaching and stirring up the maids of the city to bring in their bodkins and thimbles. Thence going out of Whitehall, I met Captain Grove, who did give me a letter directed to myself from himself. I discerned money to be in it, and took it, knowing, as I found it to be, the proceed of the place I have got him to be, the taking up of vessels for Tangier. But I did not open it till I came home to my office, and there I broke it open, not looking into it till all the money was out, that I might say I saw no money in the paper, if ever I should be questioned about it. There was a piece in gold and £4 in silver. So home to dinner with my father and wife, and after dinner up to my tryangle, where I found that above my expectation Ashwell has very good principles of musique and can take out a lesson herself with very little pains, at which I am very glad. Thence away back again by water to Whitehall, and there to the Tangier Committee, where we find ourselves at a great stand; the establishment being but £70,000 per annum, and the forces to be kept in the town at the least estimate that my Lord Rutherford can be got to bring it is £53,000. The charge of this year’s work of the Mole will be £13,000; besides £1,000 a-year to my Lord Peterborough as a pension, and the fortifications and contingencys, which puts us to a great stand, and so unsettled what to do therein we rose, and I to see my Lord Sandwich, whom I found merry at cards, and so by coach home, and after supper a little to my office and so home and to bed. I find at Court that there is some bad news from Ireland of an insurrection of the Catholiques there, which puts them into an alarm. I hear also in the City that for certain there is an embargo upon all our ships in Spayne, upon this action of my Lord Windsor’s at Cuba, which signifies little or nothing, but only he hath a mind to say that he hath done something before he comes back again. Late tonight I sent to invite my uncle Wight and aunt with Mrs. Turner tomorrow.

4th. Up betimes and to my office. By and by to Lombard street by appointment to meet Mr. Moore, but the business not being ready I returned to the office, where we sat a while, and, being sent for, I returned to him and there signed to some papers in the conveying of some lands mortgaged by Sir Rob. Parkhurst in my name to my Lord Sandwich, which I having done I returned home to dinner, whither by and by comes Roger Pepys, Mrs. Turner her daughter, Joyce Norton,1744 and a young lady, a daughter of Coll. Cockes, my uncle Wight, his wife and Mrs. Anne Wight. This being my feast, in lieu of what I should have had a few days ago for my cutting of the stone, for which the Lord make me truly thankful. Very merry at, before, and after dinner, and the more for that my dinner was great, and most neatly dressed by our own only maid. We had a fricasee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (a most rare pie), a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble and to my great content. After dinner to Hide Park; my aunt, Mrs. Wight and I in one coach, and all the rest of the women in Mrs. Turner’s; Roger being gone in haste to the Parliament about the carrying this business of the Papists, in which it seems there is great contest on both sides, and my uncle