Samuel Pepys (1633-1703)
more info on Pepys
In Great Britain the New Year began on March 25, it changed to Jan. 1, in 1752. |
Samuel Pepys' Diaries was the naval administrator and first secretary of the British Admiralty - 1660-1669. Here's what he wrote in 1667 on July - "29th. Up, and with Sir W. Batten to St. James's, to Sir W.
Coventry's chamber; where, among other things, he came to me and
told me that he had received my yesterday's letters, and that we
concurred very well in our notions; and that as to my place which
I had offered to resign of the Victualling, he had drawn up a
letter at the same time for the Duke of York's signing for the
like places in general raised during this war; and that he had
done me right to the Duke of York, to let him know that I had of
my own accord offered to resign mine. The letter do bid us to do
all things, particularizing several, for the laying up of the
ships and easing the King of charge; so that the war is now
professedly over. By and by up to the Duke of York's chamber;
and there all the talk was about Jordan's coming with so much
indiscretion, with his four little frigates and sixteen fire-
ships from Harwich, to annoy the enemy. His failures were of
several sorts, I know not which the truest: that he came with so
strong a gale of wind that his grapplings would not hold; that he
did come by their lee, whereas if he had come athwart their
hawse, they would have held; that they did not stop a tide, and
ebb up with a windward tide, and then they would have come so
fast. Now there happened to be Captain Jenifer by, who commanded
the Lily in this business, and thus says: that finding the Dutch
not so many as they expected, they did not know that there were
more of them above, and so were not so earnest to the setting
upon these; that they did do what they could to make the fire-
ships fall in among the enemy; and for their lives Sir J. Jordan
nor others could, by shooting several times at them, make them go
in: and it seems they were commanded by some idle fellows, such
as they could of a sudden gather up at Harwich; which is a sad
consideration, that at such a time as this, where the saving the
reputation of the whole nation lay at stake, and after so long a
war, the King had" |
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