August 20th. My Lord Downing called late in the afternoon. He looked about and inspected my cell, making a face at the smell, holding his pomander to his nose and peering through the window onto Tower Green, making little noises. “Hm! Um! Umm!” etc., etc.
“Well, a fine view, Mr. Peeping Pepys. Perfect for peeping, eh?” Etc.
Made no response, being in no frame for persiflage.
My lord sat himself upon a stool—the only stool—and said in a solemn tone that he had much weighed my “matter,” and had come to the conclusion that a publick tryal would only bring infamy and shame. Not only upon my own person, but also upon the Navy itself and my Lord Sandwich, who despite his “whoreing” was still held in his majesty’s affections. Etc.
He continued, saying that as the hour of “the King’s Great Endeavor” was fast approaching, he had concluded that my scandal could only hamper England’s prospeckts with respeckt to New Netherland, and then suggested that he may have resolved upon a possible “solution.”
Keenly interested in any “solution” that would spare me living the balance of my life scratching lamentable graffitoes into walls, or having my head separated from the rest of me and made food for ravens, I indicated to my lord great eagerness to hear it.
“To deploy a naval term,” he said, “were you to ‘come about’ as to the matter of war with Holland, his majesty might incline to forgive your—let us call it out of charity—‘lapse.’ ”
“And how would I accomplish this ‘coming about’?” I asked.
“By publishing to his majesty and the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral, that you have changed your opinion and are now fully satisfied that the Navy is ready to engage Holland upon the seas. What say you, Mr. Peeping Pepys?”
Whereat Mr. Peeping Pepys gave his immediate and wholehearted assent to this solution and furthermore complimented his Lord Downing on devising such an elegant—let us call it—scaffold upon which to support his zeal for war with Odious Holland.
And lo, within the hour, Mr. Pepys made his exit across the drawbridge and under the portcullis of the Middle Tower; and never had he experienced ambulation more joyous.