Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 69: November 1668 by Samuel Pepys
page 32 of 34 (94%)
page 32 of 34 (94%)
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all the morning at my chamber, and dined with my wife, and got her to read
to me in the afternoon, till Sir W. Warren, by appointment, comes to me, who spent two hours, or three, with me, about his accounts of Gottenburgh, which are so confounded, that I doubt they will hardly ever pass without my doing something, which he desires of me, and which, partly from fear, and partly from unwillingness to wrong the King, and partly from its being of no profit to me, I am backward to give way to, though the poor man do indeed deserve to be rid of this trouble, that he hath lain so long under, from the negligence of this Board. We afterwards fell to other talk, and he tells me, as soon as he saw my coach yesterday, he wished that the owner might not contract envy by it; but I told him it was now manifestly for my profit to keep a coach, and that, after employments like mine for eight years, it were hard if I could not be justly thought to be able to do that. [Though our journalist prided himself not a little upon becoming possessed of a carriage, the acquisition was regarded with envy and jealousy by his enemies, as will appear by the following extract from the scurrilous pamphlet, "A Hue and Cry after P. and H. and Plain Truth (or a Private Discourse between P. and H.)," in which Pepys and Hewer are severely handled: "There is one thing more you must be mightily sorry for with all speed. Your presumption in your coach, in which you daily ride, as if you had been son and heir to the great Emperor Neptune, or as if you had been infallibly to have succeeded him in his government of the Ocean, all which was presumption in the highest degree. First, you had upon the fore part of your chariot, tempestuous waves and wrecks of ships; on your left hand, forts and great guns, and ships a-fighting; on your right hand was a fair harbour and galleys riding, with their flags and pennants spread, kindly saluting each other, just like P[epys] and |
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