Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In

In 167789 he was elected Master of the Clothworkers’ Company, when he presented a richly-chased silver cup, which is still used at their dinners. He was not long allowed to remain in peace, for the charge of popery, which was first made in 1673, was frequently repeated, and in 1679 he was accused, on the depositions of Colonel John Scott, of betraying the navy, by sending secret particulars to the French Government; and also of a design to dethrone the King and extirpate the Protestant religion. He and Sir Anthony Deane were committed to the Tower under the Speaker’s warrant on May 22nd, and Pepys’s place at the Admiralty was filled up by the appointment of Thomas Hayter. When the two prisoners were brought to the bar of the King’s Bench on the 2nd of June, the Attorney-General refused bail; but subsequently they were allowed to find security for £30,000. At length, after several months of delay, it was found that Colonel Scott refused to acknowledge to the truth of the original deposition; and the prisoners were relieved from their bail on February 12th, 1679–80. Scott turned out to be a blackguard. He is said to have cheated the States of Holland out of £7,000, in consequence of which he was hanged in effigy at the Hague, in 1672; and in 1681 he fled from England to escape from the law, as he had been found guilty of wilful murder for killing a coachman. James, a butler, previously in Pepys’s service, confessed on his deathbed, in 1680, that he had trumped up the whole story relating to his former master’s change of religion at the instigation of Mr. Harbord, M.P. for Launceston, a leading enemy of Pepys.90

Evelyn visited Pepys in the Tower, and expressed his belief in the unjustness of the charge. While he was in custody Pepys kept up a correspondence with the Duke of York, who was then abroad, and he received an application from a Mr. D’Oyly for a loan of £50; but he was obliged to answer that he himself had been forced to borrow £100 from friends, to pay his fees and defray his expenses while in durance. It is impossible not to respect Pepys for his conduct towards James when the Royal Duke was in disgrace. He certainly made enemies by his action, and one of these was Andrew Marvell, who is reputed to have published a “Black Book” entitled, “A List of the principal labourers in the great design of Popery and arbitrary Power,” which contains the following vituperative entry: “Castle Rising—Samuel Pepys Esquire, once a taylor, then a serving man to Lord Sandwich, now Secretary to the Admiralty, got by passes and other illegal wages £40,000.” We know these assertions to be untrue, but they probably did the victim as much harm as if they had been true.

Pepys was chosen by the electors of Harwich as their member in the short Parliament that sat from March to July, 1679, his colleague being Sir Anthony Deane; but both members were superseded in the next Parliament, that met on the 17th of October, 1679.

In 1680 Pepys attended on Charles II. at Newmarket, and there he took down, from the King’s own mouth, the narrative of his escape after the Battle of Worcester, which now remains in the Pepysian Library, both in shorthand and longhand.

Sir Thomas Page, the Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, died in August, 1681; and S. Maryon, a Fellow of Clare, wrote at once, suggesting that Pepys was a fit and proper person for the post, and urging him to apply to the King for it. Pepys replied that he believed Colonel Legge (afterwards Lord Dartmouth) wanted to get the office for an old tutor. Although he pretended unfitness, he evidently liked the idea; and in a letter to Legge, while recommending an early application for the tutor, he expresses himself as willing to take the Provostship if the tutor cannot get it. He also promises, if he should be chosen, to give the whole profit of the first year, and at least half of that of each succeeding year, to “be dedicated to the general and public use of the college.”91 In the end Dr. John Copleston was appointed to the post.

In May, 1682, Pepys accompanied the Duke of York to Scotland, and narrowly escaped shipwreck by the way. Before letters could arrive in London to tell of his safety, the news came of the wreck of the “Gloucester” (the Duke’s ship), and of the loss of many lives. His friends’ anxiety was relieved by the arrival of a letter which Pepys wrote from Edinburgh to Hewer on the 8th inst., in which he detailed the particulars of the adventure. The Duke invited him to go on board the “Gloucester,” but he preferred his own yacht, in which he had more room, and in consequence of his resolution he saved himself from the risk of drowning. On the 5th of May, about five in the morning, the frigate struck upon the sand called “The Lemon and the Oar,” about sixteen leagues from the mouth of the Humber, through the carelessness of the pilot, it was said. The Duke and his party were all asleep at the time, and after they were awoke it is supposed that they remained so long on board in the hope of saving the ship, that more men were drowned than otherwise need have been. It is said that the sinking sailors gave a loud huzza for the Duke, although they perhaps owed their deaths to an error of judgment on his part. Pepys writes that, had the said wreck occurred two hours earlier, and the accompanying yachts been at the distance they had previously been, not a soul would have escaped. Pepys on his arrival in Edinburgh was allowed by the Duke to attend one or two of the councils, and he was greatly struck with the union of absoluteness and gentleness by which James maintained his authority. He then made a tour through some of the Scottish towns with Colonel Legge, being most pleased with the “beauty and trade” of Glasgow. The people were not to his liking, for he writes to Hewer: “The truth is, there is so universal a rooted nastiness hangs about the person of every Scot (man and woman) that renders the finest show they can make nauseous, even among those of the first quality.”92

The time was now coming when Pepys was to be again employed officially, and on July 30, 1683, he left London for Portsmouth, in order to join his old friend Colonel Legge (now Lord Dartmouth) in his expedition to Tangier for the purpose of demolishing that place. Pepys kept a journal of his proceedings, which is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and has been printed by the Rev. John Smith in his “Life, Journals, &c., of Pepys.” As the next chapter is devoted particularly to Tangier, it is not necessary to do more here than remark that, although this journal is of considerable interest, it falls very far short of the naïveté and charm of the original “Diary.” On March 29th, 1684, Lord Dartmouth and his party (including Pepys) arrived in the English Channel.

Shortly after this, Charles II. made some further alterations at the Admiralty, and appointed Pepys to his old place of Secretary, possession of which he kept until the Revolution, when friends of the banished prince were not likely to be in favour. This same year he was elected President of the Royal Society, an office which he held for two years, apparently with credit to himself and general satisfaction to the Fellows. He certainly was not a scientific man, but at that period most of the subjects discussed could be understood by an intelligent man; and Pepys had a sincere love for curious learning which made him peculiarly fitted to act the part of an imitation Mecænas. In 1685 Charles II. died, and James came to the throne. We have already seen how Pepys was a spectator at Charles’s coronation, now he was to take the position of an actor. We find that he marched in the procession at James’s coronation, immediately behind the King’s canopy, as one of the sixteen barons of the Cinque Ports. A Parliament was summoned to meet on the 19th of May, and Pepys was elected both by the burgesses of Harwich and by those of Sandwich. He chose to serve for Harwich, and Sir Philip Parker, Bart., was elected to fill his place at Sandwich. This Parliament was dissolved by proclamation, July 2nd, 1687, and on August 24th, the King declared in Council that another Parliament should be summoned for November 27th, 1688, the writs to bear date September 5th; but they were recalled on news being received of the Prince of Orange’s design. On December 10th, James ordered those writs which had not been sent out to be burned; and the same night, on his going away from Whitehall, he threw the Great Seal into the water. The Rev. Alexander Mills, a friend of Pepys, wrote to him from Sandwich in July, 1687, after the news of the dissolution had arrived, to say that he thought that Pepys might again be chosen if he felt inclined to stand for the town. In the next few months a great change had come over public affairs, and when the Convention Parliament was called together in January and February, 1689–90, Pepys found no place in it. In 1688 he had some correspondence with the Mayor of Harwich respecting the removal of the Custom-house from Ipswich to Harwich, and his chances of election seemed good at that time; but a few months changed all that, and the corporation did not care to be represented by an official of the late King: so when the election came on, someone called out in the street, “No Tower men, no men out of the Tower!” His public career was closed soon after this, for an order was made out by the Commissioners of the Admiralty on the 9th of March, 1688–89, commanding him to give up his books, &c., to Phineas Bowles, the newly-appointed Secretary of the Admiralty. He still retained hopes of a return to public life, and on the 8th of February, 1689–90, he wrote to the proud Sir Edward Seymour for “his interest anywhere, by which I might compass an election” for the new Parliament.93 What Seymour’s answer was we do not know, but we do know that a few months afterwards (June, 1690) Pepys was committed to the Gate-house at Westminster, upon pretence of his being affected to King James; but he was soon permitted to return to his own home on account of ill-health. On this occasion four stanch friends—Sir Peter Palavicini, Mr. James Houblon, Mr. Blackburne, and Mr. Martin—were bail for him. Soon after, he published his “Memoirs of the Navy,” to show what he had done for its improvement and government, but although he was on all sides looked up to as the greatest authority on naval affairs, he continued, even in 1692, to apprehend some fresh persecution.

Pepys had never been a healthy man, and as years began to tell upon him he suffered much. One day, when he was at Tangier, he was frightened by the old swimming in the head coming over him, and this made him melancholy.94 In December, 1686, he was again troubled with pain night and day, caused by the complaint for which he was successfully operated upon before the “Diary” commences. In a letter to his brother-in-law, St. Michel, he expresses the opinion that a general decay of his stomach and system will soon bring his life to an end; but he had several years still to live.

About this time Pepys secured the services of a Mrs. Fane as his housekeeper, and of her he wrote, in 1689: “I do not believe that a more knowing, faithful, or vigilant person, or a stricter keeper at home (which is to me a great addition)—a person more useful in sickness as well as health, than Mrs. Fane is, can anywhere be found. As such I esteem and love her with all my heart, and should ever desire to keep her acquaintance, friendship, and neighbourhood.” But—and this is a very important reservation—Mrs. Fane had a very disagreeable temper, as her victim goes on to say: “She hath a height of spirit, captiousness of humour, and bitterness and noise of tongue, that of all womankind I have hitherto had to do withal, do render her conversation and comportment as a servant most insupportable.”95 He parted with her once, but Mrs. Skinner prevailed upon him to receive her again. At last, after forbearance for three years and a-half, she was obliged to leave finally. Mr. James Houblon pleaded for her, but when he heard the above explanation, he was unable to say more.

In 1700, Pepys removed from York Buildings to what his friend Evelyn calls his “Paradisian Clapham.” Here he lived with his old clerk and friend, William Hewer, but his infirmities kept him constantly in the house.

The eminent Dr. John Wallis, Savilian Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford, was highly esteemed by Pepys, who had known him for many years as one of the most distinguished Fellows of the Royal Society. In 1701, therefore, the Diarist matured a scheme which did him the greatest credit. He sent Sir Godfrey Kneller down to Oxford to paint the old man’s portrait; and, when it was finished, he presented the picture to the University of Oxford, and received in exchange a Latin diploma thanking him in gorgeous language for his munificence. Pepys explained to Kneller that it had long been his wish to provide from the painter’s hands a means of “immortalizing the memory of the person—for his fame can never die—of that great man and my most honoured friend, Dr. Wallis, to be lodged as an humble present of mine, though a Cambridge man, to my dear aunt, the University of Oxford.”

So much for the donor. The painter, on his part, was proud of his work, and assured Pepys that he had never done a better picture, if so good a one, in his life before.

In the following year all was over with both Wallis and Pepys. On the 26th of May, 1703, Samuel Pepys, after long-continued suffering, breathed his last, in the presence of the learned Dr. George Hickes, the non-juring Dean of Worcester, who writes as follows of the death-bed: “The greatness of his behaviour, in his long and sharp tryall before his death, was in every respect answerable to his great life; and I believe no man ever went out of this world with greater contempt of it, or a more lively faith in every thing that was revealed of the world to come. I administered the Holy Sacrament twice in his illnesse to him, and had administered it a third time but for a sudden fit of illness that happened at the appointed time of administering of it. Twice I gave him the absolution of the church, which he desired, and received with all reverence and comfort, and I never attended any sick or dying person that dyed with so much Christian greatnesse of mind, or a more lively sense of immortality, or so much fortitude and patience, in so long and sharp a tryall, or greater resignation to the Will which he most devoutly acknowledged to be the wisdom of God: and I doubt not but he is now a very blessed spirit, according to his motto, mens cujusque is est quisque.”

It was found necessary to have a post-mortem examination of his body, when a nest of seven stones, weighing about four and a-half ounces, was found in the left kidney, which was entirely ulcerated. His constitution generally, however, appears to have been strong. The body was brought from Clapham, and buried in St. Olave’s Church, Crutched Friars, on the 5th of June, at nine o’clock in the evening, in a vault close by the monument erected to Mrs. Pepys.

John Jackson, Pepys’s nephew, sent a suit of mourning to Evelyn, and expressed his sorrow that distance and his correspondent’s health would prevent him from assisting at the holding-up of the pall.

It appears from a list printed at the end of Pepys’s correspondence, that mourning was given to forty persons, and that forty-five rings at 20s., sixty-two at 15s., and sixteen at 10s. were distributed to relations, godchildren, servants, and friends; also to representatives of the Royal Society, of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, of the Admiralty, and of the Navy Office. The bulk of the property was bequeathed to John Jackson, the son of Mrs. Jackson, the Pall Pepys of the “Diary;” but the money which was left was much less than might have been expected. In spite of all his public services, which were universally acknowledged, he received neither pension nor remuneration of any kind after his enforced retirement at the Revolution. Public men in those days, without private property, must have starved if they had not taken fees, for the King had no idea of wasting his money by paying salaries. At the time of Pepys’s death there was a balance of £28,007 2s. 1¼d. due to him from the Crown, and the original vouchers still remain an heirloom in the family.

CHAPTER IV.

TANGIER

“And with asphaltick slime broad as the gateDeep to the roots of hell the gather’d beachThey fasten’d: and the mole immense wrought onOver the foaming deep high-arch’d: a bridgeOf length prodigious.”—Paradise Lost, x. 298–302.

PEPYS was so intimately connected with the government of Tangier during the twenty-two years it remained in the possession of the English, that it seems necessary, in a memoir of him, to give some account of the history of the place during that period.

Tangier is a seaport, on a small bay or inlet of the Straits of Gibraltar, which affords the only good harbour for shipping on the sea-board of Morocco, an extent of coast of about 900 miles. The town was early coveted by the Portuguese, and in 1437 their army attacked it, but were defeated beneath the walls. On this occasion Dom Fernando, the King’s brother, was left behind as a hostage. A treaty of peace was concluded, but the stipulations not being executed, the Moors threw Dom Fernando into prison, where he died. The prince’s body was treated with insult, and hung up by the heels over the city walls. A few years later this unworthy conduct was revenged, for in 1463, the Portuguese being successful in battle, Alonzo V. took the town from the Moors. For two centuries the Portuguese kept possession, but about the period of our Restoration they found the place somewhat of an encumbrance, and were anxious to obtain a desirable alliance against their enemies the Spaniards, by transferring it to another power. In November, 1660, Thomas Maynard, British Consul at Lisbon, writing to Sir Edward Nicholas, says, that the King of Portugal would part with Tangier to England on reasonable terms.96

Shortly afterwards the Portuguese ambassador in London proposed the Infanta Katharine, daughter of that Duke of Braganza who became King of Portugal as Joam IV., as a wife for Charles II., offering at the same time a portion of half a million pounds sterling (“almost double what any King [of England] had ever received in money by any marriage”),97 and in addition a grant of a free trade in Brazil and the East Indies, and the possession of Tangier and the Island of Bombay. The ambassador observed that these two places “might reasonably be valued above the portion in money.”98 It was supposed that the possession of Tangier would be of infinite benefit to England and a security to her trade, and the Earl of Sandwich and Sir John Lawson were consulted respecting the proposed acquisition. Lord Sandwich said that if the town were walled and fortified with brass, it would yet repay the cost, but he only knew it from the sea. Lawson had been in it, and said that it was a place of that importance, that if it were in the hands of Hollanders they would quickly make a mole, which could easily be done. Then ships would ride securely in all weathers, and we could keep the place against the world, and give the law to the trade of the Mediterranean.99 The Portuguese were delighted at the prospect of a marriage between the Infanta and Charles, and after a few hitches the treaty was concluded, but some murmurs were heard against the delivery of Tangier into the hands of heretics. Dom Fernando de Menezes, the Governor, entreated the Queen Regent to spare him the grief of handing over the city to the enemies of the Catholic faith. He was given to understand that, if he obeyed instructions, a marquisate would be conferred upon him, but if he continued to resist he would be dismissed. Upon this, Dom Fernando threw up his command.

Lord Sandwich was instructed to take possession of Tangier, and then convey the Infanta and her portion to England. Although the Queen Regent sent a governor whom she had chosen as one devoted to her interest, and sure to obey her commands, yet Clarendon affirms that he went to his government with a contrary resolution.100 This resolution, however, was frustrated by the action of the Moors. A few days only before Lord Sandwich arrived, the Governor marched out of the town with all the horse and half the foot of the garrison, and fell into an ambush. The whole party were cut off, and the Governor and many of his chief men were killed. The town was so weak that, when Lord Sandwich arrived at this conjuncture, he was hailed as a deliverer from the Moors. He conveyed the remainder of the garrison into Portugal, and Henry, second Earl of Peterborough, with the English garrison, entered the town on the 30th of January, 1662, as the first Governor from England.

Now began a system of mismanagement worthy of the disorganized condition of public affairs. A commission was appointed for the purpose of carrying on the government of Tangier in London, and constant meetings were held. None of the commissioners knew anything of the place, and they were quite at the mercy of the governors and deputy-governors who were sent out. Pepys was placed upon the commission by the influence of Lord Sandwich, and John Creed was appointed secretary.101 Thomas Povey, the treasurer, got his accounts into so great a muddle, that he thought it wise to surrender his office to Pepys, on condition of receiving half the profits, which he did on March 20, 1664–65. This treasurership and the contract for victualling the garrison of Tangier were sources of considerable profit to our Diarist. At one of the earliest meetings of the committee, the project of forming a mole or breakwater was entertained. A contract for the work to be done at 13s. the cubical yard was accepted, although, as Pepys writes, none of the committee knew whether they gave too much or too little (February 16, 1662–63); and he signed the contract with very ill will on that score (March 30, 1663). When the accounts were looked into on April 3, 1663, it was found that the charge for one year’s work would be as much as £13,000. Two years after this, the committee agreed to pay 4s. a yard more, and the whole amount spent upon the mole was found to be £36,000 (March 30, 1665). The wind and sea exerted a very destructive influence over this structure, although it was very strongly built, and Colonel Norwood reported in 1668 that a breach had been made in the mole which would cost a considerable sum to repair. As Norwood was an enemy of a friend of his, Pepys at once jumps to the conclusion that he must be a bad man (February 22, 1668–69). The second Earl of Carnarvon said that wood was an excrescence of the earth, provided by God for the payment of debts, and Sir W. Coventry, in a conversation with Pepys, applied this saying to Tangier and its governors. It is not always safe to take for granted all that our Diarist says against the persons he writes about, but there must have been some truth in the indictment he drew up against all those who undertook the government of Tangier. When Lord Peterborough received the place from the Portuguese, a book was given to him which contained a secret account of all the conduit-heads and heads of watercourses in and about the town. This book was always given from one governor to another, but was not to be looked at by anyone else. When Lord Peterborough left, he took the book away with him, and on being asked for it always answered that he had mislaid it and could not recover it. Colonel Kirke told Pepys in 1683 that the supply of water was greatly reduced by the want of this information.102 In 1666 Pepys had applied the adjective “ignoble” to Lord Peterborough’s name, on account of his lordship’s conduct in regard to money matters. On December 15, 1662, Andrew Lord Rutherford and Earl of Teviot, Governor of Dunkirk until its surrender to the French, was appointed Governor of Tangier in succession to Lord Peterborough, who was recalled. He was a brave but rash man, and made a practice of going out of the town into the country without taking proper precautions. In May, 1664, he was surveying his lines after an attack by the Moors, when he and nineteen officers were killed by a party of the enemy in ambush. Pepys called him a cunning man, and said that had he lived he would have undone the place; but in 1683, Dr. Lawrence told Pepys that his death was a great misfortune, for he took every opportunity of making the place great, but without neglecting himself.103 John Lord Bellassis was the next governor, and he was said to be corrupt in his command.