Samuel 1633-1703 Pepys

PEPYS, SAMUEL (1633-1703), English diarist, was born on Feb. 23, 1633, in a house in Salisbury Court, close to St. Bride's Churchyard, where his father, John Pepys, carried on the business of a tailor. The family can be traced in Cambridge shire as far back as the reign of Edward I. They rose by slow degrees from the class of small copyholders and yeoman farmers to the position of gentry. In 1563 they had a recognized right to use a coat of arms. The name was pronounced in the 17th century, and has always been pronounced by the family, "Peeps." John Pepys was a younger son, who, like other gentlemen in his position in that age, went into trade. He married Margaret Kight, "washmaid to my Lady Veere," whose brother William was a butcher in Whitechapel. This was regarded as a mesalliance, for Samuel refers to his mother's relations with a certain disrespect. In 1661 John Pepys inherited a small estate at Brampton near Huntingdon, where he died in 168o, his wife having predeceased him in 1667.

Samuel was fifth child and second son of a large family, all of whom he survived. His first school was in Huntingdon, but he was afterwards sent to St. Paul's in London, where he remained till 1650. On June 21 in that year he was entered at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, but migrated to Magdalene as a sizar on Oct. I. On March 5, 1651, he went into residence, obtaining a Spendluffe scholarship a month after entering, and one on Dr. John Smith's foundation on Oct. 4, 1653. In March, 1654, he proceeded to the B.A. degree, and in 166o to that of M.A. Nothing is known of his university career except that on Oct. 21, 1653, he was publicly admonished with another undergraduate for having been "scandalously overseene in drink." At Cambridge he wrote a romance, Love is a Cheat, which he afterwards destroyed.

On Dec. 1, 1655, he was married at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, to Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Marchant, Sieur de St. Michel, a French Huguenot exile from Anjou who had married an English lady named Kingsmill. Pepys had at this time no independent means, and probably relied on his relatives, the Mountagus, to provide for him. On March 26, 1658, he was cut for the stone, an event which he always kept in memory by a solemn anniversary. In 1659 he went as secretary with his kinsman, Edward Mountagu, afterwards Earl of Sandwich, on a voyage to the Sound. On his return he was engaged as a clerk

under Mr. (afterwards Sir Edward) Downing, one of the four Tellers of the Exchequer. In 1660 he accompanied Mountagu when he commanded the fleet which brought King Charles II. back from exile. In that year, by the interest of his kinsman, he was appointed clerk of the acts in the Navy Office, but was compelled to buy off a competitor, one Barlow, with an annuity of £loo. Though he was so ignorant of business that he did not even know the multiplication table when he first took office, he soon mastered the needful mechanical details by working early and late. He had other posts and honours, which came to him either as conse quential on his Clerkship, or because he was a useful official.

The Official.

On July 23, 166o, he was appointed a clerk of the privy seal, but he resigned the office on Aug. 17, 1662. On Sept. 24, 166o, he was made a justice of the peace. In 1662 he was appointed a Younger Brother, and in 1672 an Elder Brother of the Trinity House. In 1662 also he was named a commissioner for managing the affairs of Tangier, then occupied by an English garrison. In 1664 he became a member of the corporation of the Royal Fishery, and in 1665 was appointed treasurer for Tangier. In that year also he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

During the naval war with Holland (1665-67) he proved him self an indefatigable worker. As surveyor of victualling, the whole burden of a most important department was thrown on him in addition to his regular duties. While the plague was raging in London in 1666 he remained at his post when many of his col leagues ran away, and he manfully avowed his readiness to take the risk of disease, as others of the King's servants faced the dangers of war. He had now gained the full confidence of the lord high admiral, the Duke of York, afterwards King James II. When, on the termination of the war, the navy office was violently attacked in Parliament, he was entrusted with its defence. The speech which he delivered at the bar of the House of Commons on March 5, 1668, passed for a complete vindication. The charges of mismanagement were well founded, but the fault was not in , the officials of the navy office only, and Pepys, who was master of the details, had no difficulty in making out a defence.