Up while the chimes went four, and to put down my journal, and so to my office, to read over such instructions as concern the officers of the Yard; for I am much upon seeing into the miscarriages there. By and by, by appointment, comes Commissioner Pett; and then a messenger from Mr. Coventry, who sits in his boat expecting us, and so we down to him at the Tower, and there took water all, and to Deptford (he in our passage taking notice how much difference there is between the old Captains for obedience and order, and the King’s new Captains, which I am very glad to hear him confess); and there we went into the Store-house, and viewed first the provisions there, and then his books, but Mr. Davis himself was not there, he having a kinswoman in the house dead, for which, when by and by I saw him, he do trouble himself most ridiculously, as if there was never another woman in the world; in which so much laziness, as also in the Clerkes of the Cheque and Survey (which after one another we did examine), as that I do not perceive that there is one-third of their duties performed; but I perceive, to my great content, Mr. Coventry will have things reformed.
So Mr. Coventry to London, and Pett and I to the Pay, where Sir Williams both were paying off the Royal James still, and so to dinner, and to the Pay again, where I did relieve several of my Lord Sandwich’s people, but was sorry to see them so peremptory, and at every word would, complain to my Lord, as if they shall have such a command over my Lord. In the evening I went forth and took a walk with Mr. Davis, and told him what had passed at his office to-day, and did give him my advice, and so with the rest by barge home and to bed.
The messenger
sits in his boat
expecting us.
How much
difference there is
between the old
and the dead!
As if there was never
another world
but my things—
and as if they
shall pass
with me.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 2 July 1662.