Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 408, January 1849

The common proverb tells us that money easily got is lightly expended. In one sense Pepys formed no exception to the common rule; for, notwithstanding divers good resolutions, he led rather a dissipated life for a year or two after the Restoration, and was in the constant habit of drinking more wine than altogether agreed with his constitution. This fault he strove to amend by registering sundry vows, which, however, were often broken; and he was finally weaned from the bottle by the pangs of disordered digestion. His expenses kept pace with his income. The "jackanapes coat, with silver buttons," was succeeded by a "fine one of flowered tabby vest, and coloured camelot tunique, made stiff with gold lace at the bands," in which Pepys probably expected to do great execution in the Park, or, at any rate, to astonish Mrs Knipp; but it proved to be so extravagantly fine, that his friends thought it necessary to interfere. "Povy told me of my gold-laced sleeve in the Park yesterday, which vexed me also, so as to resolve never to appear in court with them, but presently to have them taken off, as it is fit I should, and so called at my tailor's for that purpose." Povy's hint might have its origin in envy; but, on the whole, it was wise and judicious. Also Mrs Pepys was indulged with a fair allowance of lace, taffeta, and such trinkets as females affect; and both of them sat for their portraits to Hales, having previously been refused by Lely. Furniture and plate of the most expensive description were ordered; and finally, to his intense delight, Samuel achieved the great object of his own ambition, and set up a carriage of his own. The account of his first public appearance in this vehicle is too characteristic to be lost: – "At noon home to dinner, and there found my wife extraordinary fine, with her flowered gown that she made two years ago, now laced exceeding pretty, and indeed was fine all over; and mighty earnest to go, though the day was very lowering; and she would have me put on my fine suit, which I did. And so anon we went alone through the town with our new liveries of serge, and the horses' manes and tails tied with red ribbons, and the standards gilt with varnish, and all clean, and green reins, that people did mightily look upon us; and, the truth is, I did not see any coach more pretty, though more gay, than ours all the day. But we set out, out of humour – I, because Betty, whom I expected, was not come to go with us; and my wife, that I would sit on the same seat with her, which she likes not, being so fine; and she then expected to meet Sheres, which we did in the Pell Mell, and, against my will, I was forced to take him into the coach, but was sullen all day almost, and little complaisant; the day being unpleasing, though the Park full of coaches, but dusty, and windy, and cold, and now and then a little dribbling of rain; and, what made it worse, there were so many hackney coaches as spoiled the sight of the gentlemen's; and so we had little pleasure." The tale of Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia, does not convey a clearer moral. No peacock was prouder than Samuel Pepys, as he stepped that day, in all the luxury of gorgeous apparel, into his coach, and drove through the streets of London, under the distinct impression that, for the moment, he was the most remarked and remarkable man in the whole of his Majesty's dominions. Yet there were drops of bitterness in the cup. Betty Turner was not there to enjoy the triumph, and Sheres, who must needs join the party, was supposed by Samuel to stand rather high in the good graces of Mrs Pepys, insomuch that he mourned not a whit when he heard that the gallant captain was about to set off to Tangier. Add to this, the ungenial weather, and the insolent display of hackney coaches, obscuring somewhat the lustre of his new turn-out, and detracting from the glory of red ribbons, gilt standards, and green reins, and we need hardly wonder if, even in the hour of triumph, Pepys felt that he was mortal. It is to be hoped that, when he returned home, he vented his ill-humour neither upon his wife nor his monkey, both of whom, on other occasions, were made to suffer when anything had gone wrong.

Three great national events, which have not yet lost their interest, are recorded in this Diary. These are the plague, the great fire of London, and the successful enterprise of De Ruyter and the Dutch fleet at Chatham. The account of the plague will be read with much interest, especially at the present time, when another terrible epidemic has been raging through the streets and lanes of the metropolis. The progress of the plague through Europe seems, in many respects, to have resembled that of the cholera. It did not burst out suddenly in one locality, but appears to have pervaded the Continent with a gradual and irresistible march, sometimes lingering in its advance, and ever and anon breaking out with redoubled virulence. Several years before it reached England, the pestilence raged in Naples, and is said to have carried off in six months nearly 400,000 victims. Its introduction was traced to a transport ship, with soldiers on board, coming from Sardinia. It reached Amsterdam and Hamburg more than a year before it broke out in London, and its malignity may be judged of by the following entry in Pepys' Diary: "We were told to-day of a sloop, of three or four hundred tons, where all the men were dead of the plague, and the sloop cast ashore at Gottenburg." In England there had been great apprehension of its coming, long before the visitation; and two exceedingly unhealthy seasons, occurring in succession, had probably enfeebled the constitutions of many, and rendered them more liable to the contagion. Pepys' note of 15th January 1662 is as follows: "This morning Mr Berkenshaw came again, and after he had examined me, and taught me something in my work, he and I went to breakfast in my chamber upon a collar of brawn; and after we had eaten, asked me whether we had not committed a fault in eating to-day; telling me that it is a fast-day, ordered by the parliament, to pray for more seasonable weather; it having hitherto been summer weather: that it is, both as to warmth and every other thing, just as if it wore the middle of May or June, which do threaten a plague, (as all men think,) to follow, for so it was almost the last winter; and the whole year after hath been a very sickly time to this day." The plague appeared in London in December 1664, and reached its deadliest point in August and September of the ensuing year. The number of those who died from it has been differently estimated from sixty-eight to one hundred thousand. London is now, according to the best authorities, about four times as populous as it was then, so that we may easily judge of the consternation into which its inhabitants must have been thrown when the pestilence was at its worst. During the month of September 1849, the greatest number of deaths occurring from cholera in the metropolis, in one day, was about four hundred and fifty – a proportion very small when compared with the ravages of the plague at its most destructive season, and yet large enough to justify great apprehension, and to demand humiliation and prayer for national apathy and transgression. Yet, great as the alarm was, when death was waving his wings over the affrighted city, it does not seem to have been so excessive as we might well imagine. The truth is, that, not withstanding intramural interment, bad sewerage, and infected air, the sanatory condition of London, since it was rebuilt after the great fire, has improved in a most remarkable degree. Prior to that event, the metropolis had at various times suffered most severely from epidemics. In 1204, when the population must have been very small, it is recorded that two hundred persons were buried daily in the Charterhouse-yard. The mortality in 1367 has been described as terrific. In 1407, thirty thousand persons perished of a dreadful pestilence. There was another in 1478, which not only visited London with much severity, but is said to have destroyed, throughout England, more people than fell in the wars which had raged with little intermission for the fifteen preceding years. In 1485, that mysterious complaint called the sweating sickness was very fatal in London. Fifteen years later, in 1500, the plague there was so dreadful that Henry VII. and his court were forced to remove to Calais. The sweating sickness, described as mortal in three hours, again scourged England in 1517, and its ravages were so great, that, according to Stowe, half of the inhabitants of most of the larger towns died, and Oxford was almost depopulated. In 1603-4, upwards of thirty thousand persons died of the plague in London alone; and in 1625 there was another great mortality. Since the great plague of London in 1664-5, down to our time, no very fatal epidemic – at least none at all comparable to those earlier pestilences – seems to have occurred in the metropolis, and it is therefore natural that any extraordinary visitation should, from its increased rarity, occasion a much higher degree of alarm. Of all the accounts extant of the plague, that of Pepys appears to be the most truthful and the least exaggerated. He remained in London at his post until the month of August, when he removed to Greenwich; and although a timorous man, and exceedingly shy of exposing himself to unnecessary risks, he seems on this occasion to have behaved with considerable fortitude. One anecdote we cannot omit, for it tells in a few words a deep and tearful tragedy, and is moreover honourable to Pepys. It occurred when the plague was at its height. "My Lord Brouncker, Sir J. Minnes, and I, up to the vestry, at the desire of the justices of the peace, in order to the doing something for the keeping of the plague from growing; but, Lord! to consider the madness of people of the town, who will, because they are forbid, come in crowds along with the dead corpses to see them buried; but we agreed on some orders for the prevention thereof. Among other stories, one was very passionate, methought, of a complaint brought against a man in the town, for taking a child from London from an infected house. Alderman Hooker told us it was the child of a very able citizen in Gracious Street, a saddler, who had buried all the rest of his children of the plague; and himself and wife, now being shut up in despair of escaping, did desire only to save the life of this little child, and so prevailed to have it removed, stark-naked, into the arms of a friend, who brought it, having put it into fresh clothes, to Greenwich; when, upon hearing the story, we did agree it should be permitted to be received, and kept in the town." It is now generally admitted that the Account of the Plague, written by Defoe, cannot be accepted as a genuine narrative, but must be classed with the other fictions of that remarkable man, whose singular power of giving a strong impression of reality to every one of his compositions must always challenge the admiration of the reader. He has not, perhaps, aggravated the horrors of the pestilence, for that were impossible; but he has concentrated them in one heap, so as to produce a more awful picture than probably met the eye of any single citizen of London even at that disastrous period. Pepys, in his account of different visits which he was forced to make to the City when the epidemic was at its height, has portrayed the outward desolation, and the inward anxiety and apprehension, which prevailed, in more sober, yet very striking colours: "28th August 1665.– To Mr Colville the goldsmith's, having not been for some days in the streets; but now how few people I see, and those looking like people that had taken leave of the world. To the Exchange, and there was not fifty people upon it, and but few more like to be, as they told me. I think to take adieu to-day of the London streets… 30th.– Abroad, and met with Hadley, our clerk, who, upon my asking how the plague goes, told me it increases much, and much in our parish; for, says he, there died nine this week, though I have returned but six; which is a very ill practice, and makes me think it is so in other places, and therefore the plague much greater than people take it to be. I went forth, and walked towards Moorefields, to see – God forgive my presumption! – whether I could see any dead corpse going to the grave, but, as God would have it, did not. But, Lord! how everybody's looks and discourse in the street is of death, and nothing else! and few people going up and down, that the town is like a place deserted and forsaken… 6th Sept.– To London, to pack up more things; and there I saw fires burning in the street, (as it is through the whole city,) by the lord mayor's order. Hence by water to the Duke of Albemarle's: all the way fires on each side of the Thames, and strange to see, in broad daylight, two or three burials upon the Bankside, one at the very heels of another: doubtless, all of the plague, and yet at least forty or fifty people going along with every one of them… 20th.– Lord! what a sad time it is to see no boats upon the river; and grass grows all up and down Whitehall Court, and nobody but poor wretches in the streets!" By this time the plague had become so general, that all attempt to shut up the infected houses was abandoned; so that, says Pepys, "to be sure, we do converse and meet with people that have the plague upon them." A little later, when the pestilence was abating, we find this entry: "I walked to the town; but, Lord! how empty the streets are, and melancholy! so many poor, sick people in the streets, full of sores, and so many sad stories overheard as I walk, everybody talking of this dead, and that man sick, and so many in this place, and so many in that; and they tell me that, in Westminster, there is never a physician, and but one apothecary, left – all being dead; but that there are great hopes of a great decrease this week: God send it!" Still, without the circle of the plague, (for it does not seem to have penetrated beyond the immediate environs of London,) men ate, drank, and made merry, as though no vial of divine wrath had been poured out amongst them. Even Pepys, after returning from the melancholy spectacles of this day, seems to have drowned his care in more than usual jollity; and his records go far to confirm the truthfulness of Boccaccio, in the account which he has given of the levity of the Florentines during the prevalence of a like contagion.

The fire of London, which occurred about the middle of the succeeding year, not only dispelled the more poignant memories of the plague, but is thought to have done good service in eradicating its remains, which still lingered in some parts of the city, and may perhaps have been the means of preventing a second outbreak of this pestilence. On the second night the conflagration was awful: Pepys watched it from the river, – "So near the fire as we could for the smoke; and all over the Thames, with one's face in the wind, you were almost burned with a shower of fire-drops. This is very true; so as houses were burned by these drops and flakes of fire – three or four, nay, five or six houses, one from another. When we could endure no more upon the water, we to a little alehouse on the Bankside, over against the Three Cranes, and there stayed till it was dark almost, and saw the fire grow, and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more; and in corners, and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. Barbary and her husband away before us. We stayed till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire, from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long: it made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses at their ruin." For five days the conflagration raged, nor was its force spent until the greater part of London was laid in ashes. The terror of the calamity was heightened by rumours industriously propagated, though their origin never could be traced. The fire was said to be the result of a deep-laid Popish plot; and that report, though in all probability utterly without foundation, was at a future day the cause of shameful persecution and bloodshed. A great alarm was raised that the Dutch, with whom England was then at war, and whose fleet was actually in the Channel, had landed; so that a kind of sullen despair and apathy seized upon the minds of many. It was long before London could recover from the blow; but at length a new city, far more substantial and splendid than the first, arose from the scattered ruins.

England was at that time contesting the supremacy of the seas with the States of opulent and enterprising Holland. Amsterdam was then considered the most wealthy capital of Europe. The Dutch navy was powerful, well equipped, and well manned, and the admirals, De Ruyter and De Witt, were esteemed second to none living for seamanship and ability. The struggle was not a new one. In 1652, after a desperate engagement with Blake, Van Tromp, the renowned commander of Holland, had sailed in triumph through the Channel, with a broom at his masthead, to denote that he had swept the English from the seas. That premature boast was afterwards terribly avenged. Three times, in three successive months, did these foes, worthy of each other, encounter on the open seas, and yet victory declared for neither. Four other battles were fought, which England has added to her proud list of naval triumphs; but most assuredly the decisive palm was not won until, on the 31st July 1653, gallant Van Tromp fell in the heat of action. A braver man never trod the quarterdeck, and Holland may well be proud of such a hero. For a time the States succumbed to the stern genius of Cromwell; nor did the struggle commence anew until after the Restoration of Charles. The first engagement was glorious for England. The Duke of York, afterwards James II., commanded in person: he encountered the Dutch fleet off Harwich, and defeated it after a stubborn engagement. Eighteen of their finest vessels were taken, and the ship of the admiral (Opdam) blown into the air. Mr Macaulay, in his late published History of England, has not deigned even to notice this engagement – a remarkable omission, the reason of which it is foreign to our purpose to inquire. This much we may be allowed to say, that no historian who intends to form an accurate estimate of the character of James II., or to compile a complete register of his deeds, can justly accomplish his task without giving that unfortunate monarch due credit for his conduct and intrepidity, in one of the most important and successful naval actions which stands recorded in our annals. The same year (1665) is memorable for another victory, when the Earl of Sandwich captured fourteen of the enemy's ships. Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle were less successful in the engagement which commenced on 1st June 1666. The fight lasted four days, with no decisive result, but considerable loss on either side. The next battle, fought at the mouth of the Thames, ended in favour of England; the Dutch lost four-and-twenty men-of-war, and four of their admirals, and four thousand officers and seamen, fell. When we take into consideration the state of the navy during the earlier part of the reign of Charles, it is absolutely astonishing that England was able not only to cope with the Dutch on equal terms, but ultimately to subdue them. We learn from Pepys the particulars of a fact long generally known, that in no department of the state were there greater corruptions, abuses, and frauds practised than in that of the Admiralty. The pay both of officers and men was constantly in arrear, insomuch that some of them were reduced to absolute starvation whilst considerable sums were due to them. Stores were embezzled and plundered almost without inquiry. The fleets were often wretchedly commanded, for there was not then, as there is now, any restriction between the services; and new-made captains from the circle of the court, who never in their lives had been at sea, were frequently put over the heads of veterans who from boyhood had dwelt upon the ocean. There was scarcely any discipline in the navy; impressment was harshly and illegally practised, and after each engagement the sailors deserted by hundreds. So bad did matters at length become, that, towards the close of the year 1666, the fleet was in actual mutiny, and the naval arm of England paralysed. The subsequent reform of the navy is mainly attributable to the firmness and determination of the Duke of York, who, being a far better man of business than his indolent and selfish brother, applied himself resolutely to the task. The most important suggestions and rules for remedying grievances, and securing future efficiency, were made and drawn out by Pepys, who showed himself, in this respect, a most able officer of the crown, and who, in consequence, acquired an ascendency in navy affairs, which lie never lost until the Revolution deprived him of a master who thoroughly understood his value. But, before any steps were taken towards this most necessary reform, her daring adversaries aimed at the capital of England a blow which narrowly failed of success.

The seamen, as we have said, being in a state of mutiny arising from sheer wanton mismanagement, it became apparent that no active naval operations could be undertaken in the course of the following year. All this was well known to the Dutch, who determined to avail themselves of the opportunity. During the spring of 1667, the whole British coast, as far north as the firth of Forth, was molested by the Dutch cruisers, insomuch that great inconvenience was felt in London from the total stoppage of the coal trade. In the month of June, De Ruyter, being by that time fully prepared and equipped, sailed boldly into the Thames, without encountering a vestige of opposition. It is not too much to say, that the plague and fire combined, had not struck the citizens of London with so much alarm as did this hostile demonstration. All the former naval triumphs of England seemed to have gone for nothing, for here was invasion brought to the very doors of the capital. The supremacy of the seas was not now in dispute: it was the occupancy of the great British river, the highway of the national commerce. Strange were the thoughts, that haunted the minds of men whilst that mighty armament was hovering on our shores: it seemed a new Armada, with no gallant Drake to oppose it. "We had good company at our table," wrote Pepys, upon the 3d of June; "among others, my good Mr Evelyn, with whom, after dinner, I stepped aside, and talked upon the present posture of our affairs, which is, that the Dutch are known to be abroad with eighty sail of ships of war, and twenty fireships; and the French come into the Channel, with twenty sail of men-of-war, and five fireships, while we have not a ship at sea to do them any hurt with; but are calling in all we can, while our ambassadors are treating at Breda; and the Dutch look upon them as come to beg peace, and use them accordingly: and all this through the negligence of our prince, who had power, if he would, to master all these with the money and men that he hath had the command of, and may now have if he would mind his business. But, for aught we see, the kingdom is likely to be lost, as well as the reputation of it, for ever; notwithstanding so much reputation got and preserved by a rebel that went before him." All this was true. Had he been alive – he whose senseless clay had six years before been exhumed and dishonoured at Tyburn – England would not then have been submitting to so unexampled a degradation. Traitor and renegade as he was, Cromwell loved his country well. Self-ambition might be his first motive, but he was keenly alive to the glory of England, and had made her name a word of fear and terror among the nations. He was no vulgar demagogue, like those of our dogmatic time. Unlawfully as he had usurped the functions of a sovereign, Britain suffered nothing in foreign estimation while her interests were committed to his charge. What wonder if, at such a crisis, Pepys and others could not help reverting to the memory of the strong man whose bones were lying beneath the public gallows, whilst the restored king was squandering among his harlots that treasure which, if rightfully applied, might have swept the enemies of England from the seas?

On the 8th of June, the Dutch fleet appeared off Harwich. Two days afterwards they ascended the river, took Sheerness, and, breaking an enormous chain which had been drawn across the Medway for defence, penetrated as far as Upnor Castle, where, in spite of all resistance, they made prize of several vessels, and burned three men-of-war. By some shameful mismanagement the English ships had been left too far down the river, notwithstanding orders from the Admiralty to have them removed: they were, besides, only half manned; and on this occasion the English sailors did not exhibit their wonted readiness to fight. It was even reported to Pepys, by a gentleman who was present, "that he himself did hear many Englishmen, on board the Dutch ships, speaking to one another in English; and that they did cry and say, We did heretofore fight for tickets, now we fight for dollars! and did ask how such and such a one did, and would commend themselves to them – which is a sad consideration." Reinforcements arrived from Portsmouth; but instead of working, they "do come to the office this morning to demand the payment of their tickets; for otherwise they would, they said, do no more work; and are, as I understand from everybody who has to do with them, the most debauched, damning, swearing rogues that ever were in the navy – just like their profane commander." It seemed, at one time, more than probable that the Dutch would attack the city: had they made the attempt, it is not likely, so great was the panic, that they would have been encountered by effectual opposition; but De Ruyter was apprehensive of pushing his advantage too far, and contented himself with destroying such shipping as he found in the river.