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

thought, for me; but he persuaded me, and I did buy them for £4 10s. the two. Then to the Exchange and bought gloves, and so to the Bullhead Tavern, whither he brought my French gun; and one Truelocke, the famous gunsmith, that is a mighty ingenious man, and he did take my gun in pieces, and made me understand the secrets thereof and upon the whole I do find it a very good piece of work, and truly wrought; but for certain not a thing to be used much with safety: and he do find that this very gun was never yet shot off. I was mighty satisfied with it and him, and the sight of so much curiosity of this kind. Here he brought also a haberdasher at my desire, and I bought a hat of him, and so away and called away my wife from his house, and so home and to read, and then to supper and to bed, my head full in behalf of Balty, who tells me strange stories of his mother. Among others, how she, in his absence in Ireland, did pawne all the things that he had got in his service under Oliver, and run of her own accord, without her husband’s leave, into Flanders, and that his purse, and 4s. a week which his father receives of the French church, is all the subsistence his father and mother have, and that about £20 a year maintains them; which, if it please God, I will find one way or other to provide for them, to remove that scandal away.

30th. Up, and the French periwigg maker of whom I bought two yesterday comes with them, and I am very well pleased with them. So to the office, where all the morning. At noon home to dinner, and thence with my wife’s knowledge and leave did by coach go see the silly play of my Lady Newcastle’s,3308 called The Humourous Lovers; the most silly thing that ever come upon a stage. I was sick to see it, but yet would not but have seen it, that I might the better understand her. Here I spied Knipp and Betty,3309 of the King’s house, and sent Knipp oranges, but, having little money about me, did not offer to carry them abroad, which otherwise I had, I fear, been tempted to. So with [Sir] W. Penn home (he being at the play also), a most summer evening, and to my office, where, among other things, a most extraordinary letter to the Duke of York touching the want of money and the sad state of the King’s service thereby, and so to supper and to bed.

31st (Lord’s day). Up, and my tailor’s boy brings my mourning clothes home, and my wife hers and Barker’s, but they go not to church this morning. I to church, and with my mourning, very handsome, and new periwigg, make a great show. After church home to dinner, and there come Betty Michell and her husband. I do and shall love her, but, poor wretch, she is now almost ready to lie down. After dinner Balty (who dined also with us) and I with Sir J. Minnes in his coach to Whitehall, but did nothing, but by water to Strand Bridge and thence walked to my Lord Treasurer’s, where the King, Duke of York, and the Caball, and much company without; and a fine day. Anon come out from the Caball my Lord Hollis and Mr. H. Coventry,3310 who, it is conceived, have received their instructions from the King this day; they being to begin their journey towards their treaty at Bredagh speedily, their passes being come. Here I saw the Lady Northumberland3311 and her daughter-in-law, my Lord Treasurer’s daughter, my Lady Piercy,3312 a beautiful lady indeed. So away back by water, and left Balty at Whitehall and I to Mrs. Martin⁠ ⁠… and so by coach home, and there to my chamber, and then to supper and bed, having not had time to make up my accounts of this month at this very day, but will in a day or two, and pay my forfeit for not doing it, though business hath most hindered me. The month shuts up only with great desires of peace in all of us, and a belief that we shall have a peace, in most people, if a peace can be had on any terms, for there is a necessity of it; for we cannot go on with the war, and our masters are afraid to come to depend upon the good will of the Parliament any more, as I do hear.

April 1667

April 1st. Up, and with Sir J. Minnes in his coach, set him down at the Treasurer’s Office in Broad Street, and I in his coach to Whitehall, and there had the good fortune to walk with Sir W. Coventry into the garden, and there read our melancholy letter to the Duke of York, which he likes. And so to talk: and he flatly owns that we must have a peace, for we cannot set out a fleet;3313 and, to use his own words, he fears that we shall soon have enough of fighting in this new way, which we have thought on for this year. He bemoans the want of money, and discovers himself jealous that Sir G. Carteret do not look after, or concern himself for getting, money as he used to do, and did say it is true if Sir G. Carteret would only do his work, and my Lord Treasurer would do his own, Sir G. Carteret hath nothing to do to look after money, but if he will undertake my Lord Treasurer’s work to raise money of the Bankers, then people