WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.880 --> 00:00:06.000
<v Speaker 1>Chapter fifteen of Unknown London, written by Walter George Bell.

2
00:00:07.160 --> 00:00:12.279
<v Speaker 1>This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Janet.

3
00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:19.839
<v Speaker 1>Chapter fifteen a lost invention. This is a mere trifle

4
00:00:19.879 --> 00:00:22.960
<v Speaker 1>of flotsam picked up on the broad ocean of our history.

5
00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:28.679
<v Speaker 1>The incident, dismissed lightly as of no importance, very likely

6
00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:31.320
<v Speaker 1>was forgotten in the lives of those whom it concerned,

7
00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:35.560
<v Speaker 1>who are long since dead. The world knew nothing of it,

8
00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:39.079
<v Speaker 1>and it was likely to have remained unknown. But for

9
00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:42.240
<v Speaker 1>the fact that the papers chanced to be preserved among

10
00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:46.799
<v Speaker 1>the muniments at Montague House, the great London mansion of

11
00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:50.880
<v Speaker 1>the Dukes of Buckloo, there was a secret, well kept

12
00:00:51.280 --> 00:00:56.159
<v Speaker 1>and now lost forever. The brief story will introduce men

13
00:00:56.359 --> 00:01:00.600
<v Speaker 1>whom the world counted great, not in their greatness, but

14
00:01:00.719 --> 00:01:04.439
<v Speaker 1>in moments when they were mean and petty. King Charles

15
00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:08.439
<v Speaker 1>the Second, back from exile a few years, enjoying his

16
00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:12.280
<v Speaker 1>popularity with his subjects and the exercise of regal power

17
00:01:12.760 --> 00:01:17.640
<v Speaker 1>so long denied to him, but craftily suspicious, uncertain whom

18
00:01:17.640 --> 00:01:22.680
<v Speaker 1>to trust, Henry Bennett, Lord Arlington, his Secretary of State,

19
00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:27.760
<v Speaker 1>Sir Samuel Morland, the last filling a lesser space in

20
00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:31.200
<v Speaker 1>the eyes of his contemporaries, but the second, if not

21
00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:36.760
<v Speaker 1>actually the first, inventive mind of his day. The Great

22
00:01:36.799 --> 00:01:39.079
<v Speaker 1>Fire of London broke out at two o'clock on the

23
00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:44.840
<v Speaker 1>morning of Sunday, the second September sixteen sixty six, blazing

24
00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:47.959
<v Speaker 1>up in the darkness amidst dry timber built houses at

25
00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:52.640
<v Speaker 1>Pudding Lane by London Bridge. A high wind drove the

26
00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:56.879
<v Speaker 1>flames forward and sweeping along the river side. They had

27
00:01:56.920 --> 00:02:02.319
<v Speaker 1>reached Dowgate by nightfall. In Cloak Lane, which still you

28
00:02:02.359 --> 00:02:06.120
<v Speaker 1>may find off Dowgate Hill, was the general post office

29
00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:10.280
<v Speaker 1>for the mails. Sir Philip Frode was at the time

30
00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:15.479
<v Speaker 1>manager for the ly See Catherine, Countess of Chesterfield, who

31
00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:18.800
<v Speaker 1>formed the posts under a monopoly which gave the prophets

32
00:02:18.960 --> 00:02:22.439
<v Speaker 1>to the King's brother, the Duke of York, and his heirs.

33
00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:27.800
<v Speaker 1>Frod and his lady anxiously watched the fire bearing towards them,

34
00:02:28.319 --> 00:02:31.919
<v Speaker 1>and at midnight, when the peril had become grave, they

35
00:02:31.960 --> 00:02:37.280
<v Speaker 1>fled for safety. The acting postmaster, James Hicks, was no

36
00:02:37.319 --> 00:02:41.599
<v Speaker 1>stranger to horrors at hazard of life. He had remained

37
00:02:41.639 --> 00:02:45.360
<v Speaker 1>in London throughout the previous year's great plague, keeping the

38
00:02:45.439 --> 00:02:49.199
<v Speaker 1>letter office open and attending to its business, when neighbors

39
00:02:49.199 --> 00:02:52.080
<v Speaker 1>were dying all around, and the red Cross on that

40
00:02:52.159 --> 00:02:56.680
<v Speaker 1>tragic appeal, Lord, have mercy on us, were chalked on

41
00:02:56.800 --> 00:03:01.960
<v Speaker 1>many citizens doors. He stayed himself this night of the

42
00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:06.360
<v Speaker 1>fire till one o'clock. Such was then the alarm of

43
00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:09.360
<v Speaker 1>his wife and children, that they would stay no longer,

44
00:03:09.800 --> 00:03:13.199
<v Speaker 1>fearful lest the flames should entirely cut off their escape.

45
00:03:14.520 --> 00:03:18.000
<v Speaker 1>With difficulty and no little danger in the burning streets,

46
00:03:18.840 --> 00:03:21.520
<v Speaker 1>Hicks managed to reach an inn bearing the sign of

47
00:03:21.560 --> 00:03:26.159
<v Speaker 1>the Golden Lion in red Cross Street, outside Cripplegate, where

48
00:03:26.199 --> 00:03:31.400
<v Speaker 1>he temporarily re established the post house. He saved such

49
00:03:31.439 --> 00:03:35.639
<v Speaker 1>packets as he could hastily remove, and forwarded to Williamson,

50
00:03:36.199 --> 00:03:40.919
<v Speaker 1>Lord Arlington's secretary, the letters of state received by the

51
00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:45.639
<v Speaker 1>Chester and Irish males, with a despairing note that he

52
00:03:45.879 --> 00:03:50.520
<v Speaker 1>knows not how to dispose of the business. He left

53
00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:53.360
<v Speaker 1>behind that, the thought of which must have caused him

54
00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:57.439
<v Speaker 1>many a twinge of conscience and many wakeful half hours

55
00:03:57.479 --> 00:04:02.080
<v Speaker 1>in those terrible nights, lighted noonday and noisy, with the

56
00:04:02.120 --> 00:04:06.800
<v Speaker 1>crackling and fall of houses, during which London continued to burn.

57
00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:13.840
<v Speaker 1>Sir Philip Frowd too, knew what it was left behind

58
00:04:13.879 --> 00:04:17.079
<v Speaker 1>to the flames if fortuitously they should reach it first,

59
00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:20.160
<v Speaker 1>or to the hand of any marauder who might break

60
00:04:20.199 --> 00:04:23.759
<v Speaker 1>into the untenanted post house before the fire wholly consumed.

61
00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:28.800
<v Speaker 1>It was a complete secret apparatus for tampering with, copying

62
00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:33.079
<v Speaker 1>and forging letters in the interests of the state. This

63
00:04:33.319 --> 00:04:37.800
<v Speaker 1>was the device of Samuel Morland, a man whose extraordinary

64
00:04:37.959 --> 00:04:41.519
<v Speaker 1>ingenuity would have brought him immense fortune had he lived

65
00:04:41.519 --> 00:04:44.199
<v Speaker 1>in an age when the adoption of the mechanical arts

66
00:04:44.319 --> 00:04:50.120
<v Speaker 1>to commercial uses was better rewarded. A calculating machine, the

67
00:04:50.199 --> 00:04:54.120
<v Speaker 1>drum capstan for unwinding heavy ship's anchors, the gland and

68
00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:58.160
<v Speaker 1>stuffing box of the plunger pump, the speaking trumpet, and

69
00:04:58.279 --> 00:05:03.639
<v Speaker 1>practical water raising contriver all were his, the product of

70
00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:07.759
<v Speaker 1>his resourceful brain. Like the late member of Parliament of

71
00:05:07.800 --> 00:05:12.199
<v Speaker 1>our own acquaintance, who invented the safety lucifer match and

72
00:05:12.279 --> 00:05:16.639
<v Speaker 1>omitted to patent it, he missed his opportunity, but that

73
00:05:16.759 --> 00:05:19.600
<v Speaker 1>was his misfortune to be in advance of his time.

74
00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:25.680
<v Speaker 1>He was made late in life magister mechinoricom by the King.

75
00:05:26.879 --> 00:05:31.399
<v Speaker 1>The philosopher's reputation and trustworthiness were not untarnished, for he

76
00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:35.839
<v Speaker 1>had sought to serve two masters. Peeps has drawn him

77
00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:38.680
<v Speaker 1>as a lonely figure in a great company assembled on

78
00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:44.519
<v Speaker 1>the fleet to await Charles's embarkation for England. Mister Morland,

79
00:05:44.600 --> 00:05:47.560
<v Speaker 1>now Sir Samuel, was here on board. But I do

80
00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:53.199
<v Speaker 1>not find that my Lord and note one Edward Montague,

81
00:05:53.560 --> 00:05:57.879
<v Speaker 1>Earl of Sandwich, in Peepe's diary as his chief. He

82
00:05:57.959 --> 00:06:04.920
<v Speaker 1>is always styled my lord end footnote, or anybody did

83
00:06:04.920 --> 00:06:08.439
<v Speaker 1>give him any respect, he being looked upon by him

84
00:06:08.639 --> 00:06:13.480
<v Speaker 1>and all men as a knave. He had, with Isaac

85
00:06:13.560 --> 00:06:18.040
<v Speaker 1>Dorlas the Younger, during Cromwell's government, been one of the

86
00:06:18.040 --> 00:06:21.199
<v Speaker 1>Board of Examiners of the Post Office, by whom any

87
00:06:21.199 --> 00:06:26.680
<v Speaker 1>suspicious letters directed abroad were opened and read. Also, he

88
00:06:26.759 --> 00:06:32.040
<v Speaker 1>had kept up secret communications with Charles in France. Cromwell

89
00:06:32.199 --> 00:06:35.519
<v Speaker 1>served by many others whose infidelity was yet blacker than

90
00:06:35.519 --> 00:06:41.279
<v Speaker 1>the inventors, of course, knew nothing of this. Morland had

91
00:06:41.279 --> 00:06:45.759
<v Speaker 1>been Secretary Thurlow's own secretary. A dramatic incident in his

92
00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:49.600
<v Speaker 1>career of duplicity, as told by Wellwood in his memoirs,

93
00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:54.600
<v Speaker 1>reads much like an excerpt from the Arabian nights and

94
00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:59.560
<v Speaker 1>little like the truth. This was his eavesdropping at the plot,

95
00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:03.800
<v Speaker 1>so called by royalists to induce Charles the Second and

96
00:07:03.879 --> 00:07:06.959
<v Speaker 1>his brother to effect a landing on the Sussex coast

97
00:07:07.560 --> 00:07:10.920
<v Speaker 1>under pretense of meeting many adherents, and to put them

98
00:07:10.920 --> 00:07:15.519
<v Speaker 1>both to death the moment they disembarked. Cromwell, Thurlough and

99
00:07:15.639 --> 00:07:19.240
<v Speaker 1>Sir Richard Willis met his scheme at Thurlough's office, and

100
00:07:19.279 --> 00:07:22.639
<v Speaker 1>the conversation was overheard by Morland, who pretended to be

101
00:07:22.680 --> 00:07:28.240
<v Speaker 1>asleep at his desk. On discovering Moreland's presence there, Cromwell

102
00:07:28.319 --> 00:07:31.680
<v Speaker 1>drew his poigner and would have killed him on the spot,

103
00:07:32.120 --> 00:07:35.279
<v Speaker 1>but for Thurlow's solemn assurance that his secretary had sat

104
00:07:35.399 --> 00:07:39.399
<v Speaker 1>up two nights in succession and was certainly fast asleep.

105
00:07:40.560 --> 00:07:43.839
<v Speaker 1>Moreland is said to have betrayed Willis, the originator of

106
00:07:43.879 --> 00:07:47.680
<v Speaker 1>the plot. His reward was one of the first knighthoods

107
00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:52.639
<v Speaker 1>bestowed by Charles at his restoration. Peeps I have said

108
00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:56.000
<v Speaker 1>held him to be a knave. Later they had a

109
00:07:56.120 --> 00:07:59.720
<v Speaker 1>chance meeting at the Privy Seal Office, whence Morland had

110
00:07:59.720 --> 00:08:02.600
<v Speaker 1>come with two baronet's grants given to him by the

111
00:08:02.680 --> 00:08:06.439
<v Speaker 1>King to make money out of all, which, says the

112
00:08:06.480 --> 00:08:10.560
<v Speaker 1>worldly minded diarist, to make me begin to think he

113
00:08:10.639 --> 00:08:12.639
<v Speaker 1>is not so much of a fool as I took

114
00:08:12.720 --> 00:08:16.399
<v Speaker 1>him to be. But I am losing the story in

115
00:08:16.439 --> 00:08:20.720
<v Speaker 1>recalling the actors. The Stewart letter writer knew nothing of

116
00:08:20.759 --> 00:08:24.439
<v Speaker 1>the envelopes. The written letter was penned upon one side

117
00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:27.800
<v Speaker 1>of a large sheet of paper. Then the sheet was folded,

118
00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:31.279
<v Speaker 1>addressed on the back, and sealed with wax or wafer,

119
00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:34.639
<v Speaker 1>a good method for the convenience of which all who

120
00:08:34.639 --> 00:08:37.639
<v Speaker 1>have had the handling of large numbers of old documents

121
00:08:38.080 --> 00:08:43.279
<v Speaker 1>are profoundly grateful. It had, of course, the disadvantage that,

122
00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:47.000
<v Speaker 1>with a little expert manipulation of seal and wafer, the

123
00:08:47.120 --> 00:08:52.480
<v Speaker 1>contents were soon at the disposal of prying eyes. The Spaniards,

124
00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:55.600
<v Speaker 1>masters of intrigue, had a way of so sealing up

125
00:08:55.720 --> 00:08:58.519
<v Speaker 1>letters that it was said to be utterly impossible to

126
00:08:58.600 --> 00:09:03.559
<v Speaker 1>open them without desa discovery being made. Lord Arlington, having

127
00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:07.440
<v Speaker 1>heard of Morland's proficiency in tricks of the kind, brought

128
00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:12.240
<v Speaker 1>the method to the King's notice. Morland, by way of experiment,

129
00:09:12.759 --> 00:09:16.600
<v Speaker 1>and to show his powers, induced Arlington to go alone

130
00:09:16.679 --> 00:09:20.799
<v Speaker 1>into a private room. There write ten or twelve lines,

131
00:09:21.480 --> 00:09:24.440
<v Speaker 1>fold and seal the paper in the Spanish manner, and

132
00:09:24.519 --> 00:09:28.759
<v Speaker 1>leave the document with the inventor. A day or two

133
00:09:28.879 --> 00:09:32.840
<v Speaker 1>later he waited upon Arlington and gave him first a

134
00:09:32.879 --> 00:09:35.720
<v Speaker 1>copy of what he had so penned and sealed, then

135
00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:41.039
<v Speaker 1>put into his hand his own sealed letter. Arlington examined

136
00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:46.000
<v Speaker 1>both and opened them with all care imaginable. Afterwards, confessing

137
00:09:46.039 --> 00:09:48.919
<v Speaker 1>that he could not tell which was his own handwriting,

138
00:09:50.159 --> 00:09:55.399
<v Speaker 1>he immediately left me. Morland records, being not a little surprised,

139
00:09:55.440 --> 00:09:58.559
<v Speaker 1>and acquainted the King with what had happened, and showed

140
00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:04.360
<v Speaker 1>him all the papers. Charles's curiosity was aroused, and his

141
00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:08.120
<v Speaker 1>love of devious methods led him to desire to know more.

142
00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:12.799
<v Speaker 1>The flagrant dishonesty of the thing must be condoned, if

143
00:10:12.840 --> 00:10:17.679
<v Speaker 1>all be fair in love, war, and statecraft. A demonstration

144
00:10:17.840 --> 00:10:21.360
<v Speaker 1>was first arranged at the Secretary's office at an hour

145
00:10:21.679 --> 00:10:24.559
<v Speaker 1>when all the clerks and messengers had left for the day.

146
00:10:26.039 --> 00:10:29.399
<v Speaker 1>Models of the apparatus were shown and explained, and the

147
00:10:29.399 --> 00:10:34.000
<v Speaker 1>whole process was gone through under the King's eyes, with

148
00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:38.720
<v Speaker 1>which his Majesty, so Morland writes, was so well pleased

149
00:10:39.039 --> 00:10:42.200
<v Speaker 1>that he sent for the postmaster General, and ordered him

150
00:10:42.240 --> 00:10:45.559
<v Speaker 1>to prepare two rooms at the General Post Office to

151
00:10:45.639 --> 00:10:49.039
<v Speaker 1>put these things in real practice, which three months after

152
00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:53.000
<v Speaker 1>was done. The King came down again to witness a

153
00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:58.519
<v Speaker 1>second demonstration. When all went well, the circumstances were highly dramatic.

154
00:10:59.480 --> 00:11:04.159
<v Speaker 1>A private gentlemen's coach drove into Whitehall late at night

155
00:11:04.399 --> 00:11:08.559
<v Speaker 1>between ten and eleven o'clock. The King entered it. With

156
00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:12.600
<v Speaker 1>him was Lord Arlington, the state's secretary, and one other.

157
00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:17.039
<v Speaker 1>Together they rode unnoticed into the city to the General

158
00:11:17.080 --> 00:11:22.720
<v Speaker 1>post Office. There, in the shuttered and concealed rooms, they

159
00:11:22.759 --> 00:11:26.519
<v Speaker 1>witnessed the forgers at work, and stayed nearly three hours,

160
00:11:27.080 --> 00:11:31.240
<v Speaker 1>almost till dawn was in the skies. Seeing with admiration

161
00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:36.320
<v Speaker 1>and very great satisfaction. So the unblushing Morland declares the

162
00:11:36.399 --> 00:11:41.600
<v Speaker 1>various operations, which were one opening with great care and

163
00:11:41.679 --> 00:11:46.360
<v Speaker 1>expedition all manners of seals, both wafer and wax, and

164
00:11:46.440 --> 00:11:49.600
<v Speaker 1>again sealing the letters up so that the most curious

165
00:11:49.679 --> 00:11:52.519
<v Speaker 1>eye could not discover that they had been tampered with.

166
00:11:53.799 --> 00:11:58.799
<v Speaker 1>Two counterfeiting all sorts of seals, giving as sharp impressions

167
00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:02.200
<v Speaker 1>as with the original seals, both in wafer and wax.

168
00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:07.799
<v Speaker 1>Three counterfeiting all manner of writing, so as to make

169
00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:11.279
<v Speaker 1>it impossible for any person to know or distinguish his

170
00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:17.000
<v Speaker 1>own handwriting. Four rapid and exact copying of any writing,

171
00:12:17.480 --> 00:12:19.919
<v Speaker 1>even when a whole sheet of paper was closely written

172
00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:23.639
<v Speaker 1>upon both sides, for which little more time than one

173
00:12:23.720 --> 00:12:28.679
<v Speaker 1>minute was required, and so proportionately for any number of sheets.

174
00:12:29.759 --> 00:12:33.480
<v Speaker 1>A fine knight's work for a King Morland, I fear

175
00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:36.759
<v Speaker 1>a sad scoundrel, no doubt was dead to those feelings

176
00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:41.240
<v Speaker 1>common to all normally constituted beings which make them regard

177
00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:45.799
<v Speaker 1>a forger as a loathsome and despicable creature. But it

178
00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:49.840
<v Speaker 1>would be interesting, could we read Charles's unquiet thoughts as

179
00:12:49.879 --> 00:12:55.879
<v Speaker 1>he drove away. The King was well satisfied. All these

180
00:12:55.919 --> 00:13:00.840
<v Speaker 1>black arts were thereafter by royal command, this at the

181
00:13:00.879 --> 00:13:06.279
<v Speaker 1>General post Office, with great advantage to the Crown, until

182
00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:10.039
<v Speaker 1>by the postmaster's negligence when he fled before the advancing

183
00:13:10.120 --> 00:13:14.240
<v Speaker 1>fire during the night of the second September sixteen sixty six.

184
00:13:15.039 --> 00:13:18.279
<v Speaker 1>The machines and utensils employed were left behind and destroyed

185
00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:23.879
<v Speaker 1>by the flames. Years passed by Morland, grown old and

186
00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:27.559
<v Speaker 1>always needy, large monies he had received, but they slipped

187
00:13:27.559 --> 00:13:31.840
<v Speaker 1>through his fingers, desired for his own profit, that the

188
00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:35.639
<v Speaker 1>tampering and forgery should be restored, And he set out

189
00:13:35.799 --> 00:13:39.519
<v Speaker 1>in a petition to Lord Shaftesbury, then Secretary of State,

190
00:13:40.240 --> 00:13:43.480
<v Speaker 1>the great advantages that would accrue to the King thereby,

191
00:13:44.679 --> 00:13:48.440
<v Speaker 1>that he would, by frequent inspection of letters when the

192
00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:51.919
<v Speaker 1>practice was unsuspected, come to know the temper of all

193
00:13:51.960 --> 00:13:56.799
<v Speaker 1>his principal and active subjects throughout his dominions, that where

194
00:13:56.840 --> 00:13:59.559
<v Speaker 1>treason was suspected, it would be easy to make a

195
00:13:59.600 --> 00:14:04.559
<v Speaker 1>disaffected subject and his accomplices correspond by copies only, and

196
00:14:04.639 --> 00:14:07.720
<v Speaker 1>to keep the originals till their designs were ripe for

197
00:14:07.799 --> 00:14:13.799
<v Speaker 1>discovery and conviction. And this person, says Morland, the tempter

198
00:14:14.759 --> 00:14:18.840
<v Speaker 1>may sometimes happen to be a favorite, or a Privy councilor,

199
00:14:19.360 --> 00:14:23.639
<v Speaker 1>or a great military officer, and nearly concern the Prince's

200
00:14:23.639 --> 00:14:29.200
<v Speaker 1>life and government. Furthermore, the devices of ambassadors and foreign

201
00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:33.159
<v Speaker 1>ministers would be thwarted. Those people were always careful to

202
00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:37.120
<v Speaker 1>send their dispatches of consequence as late as possible to

203
00:14:37.159 --> 00:14:40.799
<v Speaker 1>the General Post Office, so that no time was available

204
00:14:40.799 --> 00:14:45.360
<v Speaker 1>for spying into their contents. But by the wonderful process,

205
00:14:45.679 --> 00:14:50.080
<v Speaker 1>exact copies, even of ten or twelve written sheets, could

206
00:14:50.120 --> 00:14:55.240
<v Speaker 1>be made in as many minutes. Machiavelli himself gave no

207
00:14:55.360 --> 00:14:59.559
<v Speaker 1>more Satanic council to his prince. But the old order

208
00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:03.799
<v Speaker 1>had changed, swept away in a night, the night during

209
00:15:03.799 --> 00:15:07.600
<v Speaker 1>which Charles had lain such an unconsciousable time in dying,

210
00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:12.200
<v Speaker 1>one recalls the tremendous indictment that John Evelyn wrote in

211
00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:18.759
<v Speaker 1>his diary. I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming,

212
00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:23.679
<v Speaker 1>and all dissoluteness, and as it were, total forgetfulness of God.

213
00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:27.720
<v Speaker 1>It being Sunday evening, which this day to night I

214
00:15:27.799 --> 00:15:31.000
<v Speaker 1>was witness of the King sitting and toying with his

215
00:15:31.080 --> 00:15:36.679
<v Speaker 1>concubines Portsmouth, Cleveland and Mazarin, et cetera. A French boy

216
00:15:36.759 --> 00:15:41.080
<v Speaker 1>singing love songs in that glorious gallery, whilst about twenty

217
00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:44.960
<v Speaker 1>of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons read basset

218
00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:48.720
<v Speaker 1>round a large table, a bank of at least two

219
00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:52.639
<v Speaker 1>thousand pounds in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen

220
00:15:52.879 --> 00:15:57.759
<v Speaker 1>who were with me made reflections with astonishment. Six days

221
00:15:57.799 --> 00:16:03.879
<v Speaker 1>after was all in the dust. A cautious and stolid Dutchman,

222
00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:08.759
<v Speaker 1>William of Orange sat on the British throne. He refused

223
00:16:08.799 --> 00:16:11.919
<v Speaker 1>his consent. There is a note at the end of

224
00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:16.399
<v Speaker 1>Morland's petition in Shaftesbury's hand. The King made a very

225
00:16:16.399 --> 00:16:20.759
<v Speaker 1>honorable answer that Sir Sam should be considered, but he

226
00:16:20.879 --> 00:16:23.759
<v Speaker 1>thought that the secret ought to die with him, as

227
00:16:23.799 --> 00:16:28.320
<v Speaker 1>too dangerous to be encouraged. And so far as I know,

228
00:16:28.879 --> 00:16:32.159
<v Speaker 1>and so far as is known at Saint Martin's Le Grande,

229
00:16:32.679 --> 00:16:36.039
<v Speaker 1>the secret died with him, and no doubt it is

230
00:16:36.080 --> 00:16:39.559
<v Speaker 1>well end of chapter fifteen,