Diary, Sep/Oct 1663 | Page 4

meal of them. D.W.]

THE DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS M.A. F.R.S.
CLERK OF THE ACTS AND SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY
TRANSCRIBED FROM THE SHORTHAND MANUSCRIPT IN
THE PEPYSIAN LIBRARY MAGDALENE COLLEGE
CAMBRIDGE BY THE REV. MYNORS BRIGHT M.A. LATE

FELLOW AND PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE
(Unabridged)
WITH LORD BRAYBROOKE'S NOTES
EDITED WITH ADDITIONS BY
HENRY B. WHEATLEY F.S.A.

DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS. SEPTEMBER & OCTOBER 1663
Sept. 1st. Up pretty betimes, and after a little at my viall to my office,
where we sat all the morning, and I got my bill among others for my
carved work (which I expected to have paid for myself) signed at the
table, and hope to get the money back again, though if the rest had not
got it paid by the King, I never intended nor did desire to have him pay
for my vanity. In the evening my brother John coming to me to
complain that my wife seems to be discontented at his being here, and
shows him great disrespect; so I took and walked with him in the
garden, and discoursed long with him about my affairs, and how
imprudent it is for my father and mother and him to take exceptions
without great cause at my wife, considering how much it concerns them
to keep her their friend and for my peace; not that I would ever be led
by her to forget or desert them in the main, but yet she deserves to be
pleased and complied with a little, considering the manner of life that I
keep her to, and how convenient it were for me to have Brampton for
her to be sent to when I have a mind or occasion to go abroad to
Portsmouth or elsewhere. So directed him how to behave himself to her,
and gave him other counsel; and so to my office, where late.

2nd. Up betimes and to my office, and thence with Sir J. Minnes by
coach to White Hall, where met us Sir W. Batten, and there staid by the
Council Chamber till the Lords called us in, being appointed four days
ago to attend them with an account of the riott among the seamen the
other day, when Sir J. Minnes did as like a coxcomb as ever I saw any
man speak in my life, and so we were dismissed, they making nothing
almost of the matter. We staid long without, till by and by my Lord
Mayor comes, who also was commanded to be there, and he having, we
not being within with him, an admonition from the Lords to take better
care of preserving the peace, we joyned with him, and the Lords having

commanded Sir J. Minnes to prosecute the fellows for the riott, we rode
along with my Lord Mayor in his coach to the Sessions House in the
Old Bayley, where the Sessions are now sitting. Here I heard two or
three ordinary tryalls, among others one (which, they say, is very
common now-a-days, and therefore in my now taking of mayds I
resolve to look to have some body to answer for them) a woman that
went and was indicted by four names for entering herself a cookemayde
to a gentleman that prosecuted her there, and after 3 days run away
with a silver tankard, a porringer of silver, and a couple of spoons, and
being now found is found guilty, and likely will be hanged. By and by
up to dinner with my Lord Mayor and the Aldermen, and a very great
dinner and most excellent venison, but it almost made me sick by not
daring to drink wine. After dinner into a withdrawing room; and there
we talked, among other things, of the Lord Mayor's sword. They tell
me this sword, they believe, is at least a hundred or two hundred years
old; and another that he hath, which is called the Black Sword, which
the Lord Mayor wears when he mournes, but properly is their Lenten
sword to wear upon Good Friday and other Lent days, is older than that.
Thence I, leaving Sir J. Minnes to look after his indictment drawing up,
I home by water, and there found my wife mightily pleased with a
present of shells, fine shells given her by Captain Hickes, and so she
and I up and look them over, and indeed they are very pleasant ones.
By and by in comes Mr. Lewellin, lately come from Ireland, to see me,
and he tells me how the English interest falls mightily there, the Irish
party being too great, so that most of the old rebells are found innocent,
and their lands, which were forfeited and bought or given to the
English, are restored to them; which gives great discontent