Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,606 pages of information about Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete.

Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,606 pages of information about Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete.
Commissioners of the Treasury to me for not paying of pensions, and with so much reason, and eloquence so natural, was admirable.  And another thing, about his pressing for the reduction of the charge of Tangier, which they would have put off to another time; “But,” says he, “the King suffers so much by the putting off of the consideration of reductions of charge, that he is undone; and therefore I do pray you, sir, to his Royal Highness, that when any thing offers of the kind, you will not let it escape you.”  Here was a great bundle of letters brought hither, sent up from sea, from a vessel of ours that hath taken them after they had been flung over by a Dutchman; wherein, among others, the Duke of York did read the superscription of one to De Witt, thus “To the most wise, foreseeing and discreet, These, &c.;” which, I thought with myself, I could have been glad might have been duly directed to any one of them at the table, though the greatest men in this kingdom.  The Duke of York, the Lord Chancellor, my Lord Duke of Albemarle, Arlington, Ashley, Peterborough, and Coventry (the best of them all for parts), I perceive they do all profess their expectation of a peace, and that suddenly, and do advise of things accordingly, and do all speak of it (and expressly, I remember, the Duke of Albemarle), saying that they hoped for it.  Letters were read at the table from Tangier that Guiland is wholly lost, and that he do offer Arzill to us to deliver it to us.  But Sir W. Coventry did declare his opinion that we should have nothing to do with it, and said that if Tangier were offered us now, as the King’s condition is, he would advise against the taking it; saying, that the King’s charge is too great, and must be brought down, it being, like the fire of this City, never to be mastered till you have brought it under you; and that these places abroad are but so much charge to the King, and we do rather hitherto strive to greaten them than lessen them; and then the King is forced to part with them, “as,” says he, “he did with Dunkirke,” by my Lord Tiviott’s making it so chargeable to the King as he did that, and would have done Tangier, if he had lived:  I perceive he is the only man that do seek the King’s profit, and is bold to deliver what he thinks on every occasion.  Having broke up here, I away with Mr. Gawden in his coach to the ’Change, and there a, little, and then home and dined, and then to the office, and by and by with my wife to White Hall (she to Unthanke’s), and there met Creed and did a little business at the Treasury chamber, and then to walk in Westminster Hall an hour or two, with much pleasure reflecting upon our discourse to-day at the Tangier meeting, and crying up the worth of Sir W. Coventry.  Creed tells me of the fray between the Duke of Buckingham at the Duke’s playhouse the last Saturday (and it is the first day I have heard that they have acted at either the King’s or Duke’s houses this month or six weeks) and Henry Killigrew, whom
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Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.