All I can add is, my Lord Treasurer will endeavour to dispose the Vice-Chamberlain; and if it be in his power, for I think him as much overlaid as others, I doubt not he will undertake your charge. And because the assignment which remains to be made upon Wales, which is about £30,000 for the second year and the first quarter of the third, may better please him, my Lord Treasurer will offer him that, or offer it to Sir William D'Oyly and yourself, if you can procure credit upon it. He will make an essay whether out of the present prizes (which if his Majesty will not employ to this use, being a better fond of credit, he may be repaid from this assignment) he can get you a considerable sum. His lordship is ready to assign out of Wales, or the seventeen counties, £50,000 for this service singly. And if I could give you a better and more particular account, I would: for I value both yours and Sir William's integrities and informations so much, you may both assure yourselves I will not be wanting. And am really sensible of your cares and dangers, which we want not (being for all comers) even here; but being in our station, and depending on Providence, I hope none of us shall miscarry. We are now separated and in motion, but I will haste the resolution. In the meantime you may reserve this to yourself. Only communicate it to Sir William D'Oyly, to whom I cannot at present write; for having received your letters but late this night, and the post going away in the morning, and I have to send my letter six miles thither. I beg his pardon and yours, and remain, with all truth and affection, SIR, Your most faithful kinsman and servant, John Evelyn to Sir Philip Warwick. Sayes Court, 30 Sept. 1665. Your favour of the 16th current from Stratton, has not only enlightened mine eyes, but confirmed my reason; for sure I am I durst write nothing to you which would carry in it the least diffidence of your most prudent economy; and you are infinitely mistaken in me if you think I have not established my opinion of your sincerity and candour in all that you transact, upon a foundation very remote from what the world does ordinarily build upon. I am sufficiently satisfied to whose care our supplies did naturally belong; for I do not believe the sums we have received to carry on our burthen thus far, trifling as they have been compared to the occasion, proceeded from his (Sir George's) good nature (which I have been much longer acquainted with than you), but to shift the clamour which our necessities have compelled us to do; whilst our task-masters exacted brick without allowing us straw. And if I have expressed anything to you in a style more zealous than ordinary, it has been to lay before you a calamity which nothing can oppose but a sudden supply; and for that my Lord Arlington (to whom I have frequently said as much) directed me to the proper object. Nor was what I writ a prophecy at adventure. One fortnight has made me feel the utmost of miseries that can befal a person in my station and with my affections ;-to have 25,000 prisoners, and 1,500 sick and wounded men to take care of, without one penny of money, and above £2000 indebted. It is true, I am but newly acquainted with business, and I now find the happy difference betwixt speculation and action to the purpose; learning that at once, which others get by degrees; but I am sufficiently punished for the temerity, and I acknowledge the burthen insupportable. Nor indeed had I been able to obviate this impetuous torrent, had not his Grace the Duke of Albemarle and my Lord Sandwich (in pure compassion c me) unanimously resolved to strain their authority, and to sell (though not a full quorum) some of the prizes, and break bulk in an Indian ship, to redeem me from this plunge; and all this, for the neglect of his personal care-whom you worthily perstringe, though for domestic respects and other relations they were not willing to express their resentments. Sir, I am in some hopes of touching the £5000 some day this week; but what is that, to the expense of £200 the day? Is there no exchange or pecuniary exemption to be proposed? or is his Majesty resolved to maintain the armies of his enemies in his own bosom? whose idleness makes them sick, and their sickness redoubles the charge! I am amazed at this method, but must hold my tongue. Why might not yet the French, who are numerous in this last action (and in my conscience have enough of the sea), be sent home to their master, not to gratify but plague him with their unprofitable numbers ? Sir, I most humbly acknowledge your goodness for the confidence you have in me, and for that Arcanum, the account of the disposure and assignment of this prodigious royal aid of £2,500,000 which you have so particularly imparted to me, and that I should have preserved with all due caution, though you had enjoined me none. If I obtain this small sum of £5000 it will be a breathing till I can meet my brother commissioners at Oxford, whither I am summoned to join for the effects and settlements of some of those more solid appointments mentioned in your audit, and which you have promised to promote; and therefore I will trouble you no further at present, than to let you know, that upon that account of your encouragement (I mean the providence of God and my sole desires of serving him in anything which I hope he may accept, for I swear to you no other consideration should tempt me a second time to this trouble) I am resolved to maintain my station, and to refuse nothing that may contribute to his Majesty's service, or concern my duty, who am, Sir, Your, &c. John Evelyn to Sir William Coventry.1 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONOur, Sayes-Court, 2 October, 1665. Nothing but a calamity which requires the application of the speediest redress to preserve the lives of men, the honour of his Majesty, and (as I conceive) a concernment of the weightiest importance to the whole nation, could have extorted this repetition of the sad posture our affairs are in, for want of those moneys and effects we were made believe should be assigned us for the carrying on of the province entrusted to us. I will not torment you with 1 Secretary to the Duke of York, and one of the Privy Council. the particulars of my own story, which you know so well by all that has prevented my complaints; but I perfectly apprehend the funest and calamitous issue which a few days may produce, unless some speedy course be taken to stop it. Nor am I so little acquainted with the respect which I owe to the persons I now write to, as not to know with what decency and reserve I ought to make my addresses upon any other occasion: but the particulars I have alleged are very great truths, and it were to betray his Majesty's gracious intentions, and even his honour, to extenuate here. Sir William D'Oyly and myself have near ten thousand upon our care, whiles there seems to be no care of us; who, having lost all our servants, officers, and most necessary assistants, have nothing more left us to expose but our persons, which are every moment at the mercy of a raging pestilence (by our daily conversation) and an unreasonable multitude; if such they may be called, who, having adventured their lives for the public, perish for their reward, and die like dogs in the street unregarded. Our prisoners (who with open arms, as I am credibly informed by eye-witnesses, embraced our men, instead of lifting up their hands against them) beg at us, as a mercy, to knock them on the head; for we have no bread to relieve the dying creatures. Nor does this country afford gaols to secure them in, unless Leeds Castle (for which I am now contracting with my Lord Culpepper) may be had; if at least half of them survive to be brought so far, to starve when they come there. As for the pittance now lately ordered us, what will that benefit to our numbers and the mouths we are to feed? Neither is that to be had suddenly, and will be spent before we touch it. I could assemble other particulars of a sad countenance relating to the miseries of our own countryI beseech your Honour, let us not be reputed barbarians; or if at last we must be so, let me not be the executor of so much inhumanity; when the price of one good subject's life is (rightly considered) of more value than the wealth of the Indies. It is very hard, if in now a twelvemonth's time that we have cost you little more than £30,000, through all England where we have supported this burthen there should not have been a sufficient fund consecrated and assigned as a sacred stock for so important a service; since men. it has been a thing so frequently and earnestly pressed to their Lordships, and that this is not an affair which can be managed without present moneys to feed it; because we have to deal with a most miserable indigent sort of people, who live but from hand to mouth, and whom we murder if we do not pay daily or weekly. I mean those who harbour our sick and wounded men, and sell bread to our prisoners of war. How we have behaved ourselves for his Majesty's advantage and honour, we are most ready to produce the accounts, and to stand to the comparison of what it cost a former usurper, and a power which was not lavish of their expenses. Let it please your Honour to consider of the premises, and if you can believe I retain so much of servile in me, as to inform you of tales, or design to magnify my own merits (whatever my particular and private sufferings have been), let me be dismissed with infamy; but let me beg of your Honour to receive first the relation of his Majesty's principal officers and commissioners of the Navy which accompanies the paper of, Right Honourable, Your, &c. John Evelyn to Samuel Pepys. Sayes-Court, 3 Jan., 1665-6. SIR, I have according to your commands sent you an hasty draught of the Infirmary, and project for Chatham, the reasons and advantages of it; which challenges your promise of promoting it to the use designed. I am myself convinced of the exceeding benefit it will every way afford us. If, upon examination of the particulars, and your intercession, it shall merit a recommendation from the rest of the principal officers, I am very confident the effects will be correspondent to the pretence of the papers which I trans Pepys was now Clerk of the Admiralty, or, as it was then called, Clerk of the Acts of the Navy, and brought into frequent official communication with Evelyn. For evidence of their long friendship, only closed by death, see Diary, vol. ii. pp. 383, 384. |