Up, and to the office, where very busy all the morning. We met upon a report to the Duke of Yorke of the debts of the Navy, which we finished by three o’clock, and having eat one little bit of meate, I by water before the rest to White Hall (and they to come after me) because of a Committee for Tangier, where I did my business of stating my accounts perfectly well, and to good liking, and do not discern, but the Duke of Albemarle is my friend in his intentions notwithstanding my general fears. After that to our Navy business, where my fellow officers were called in, and did that also very well, and then broke up, and I home by coach, Tooker with me, and staid in Lumbard Streete at Viner’s, and sent home for the plate which my wife and I had a mind to change, and there changed it, about 50l. worth, into things more usefull, whereby we shall now have a very handsome cupboard of plate. So home to the office, wrote my letters by the post, and to bed.
the debts I shed eat
one little bit of me
they come for an account
of my general fear
and I a broke bard
change it into more useful letters
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 6 February 1666.