True believers

Up very betimes and to attend the Duke of York by order, all of us to report to him what the works are that are required of us and to divide among us, wherein I have taken a very good share, and more than I can perform, I doubt.
Thence to the Exchequer about some Tangier businesses, and then home, where to my very great joy I find Balty come home without any hurt, after the utmost imaginable danger he hath gone through in the Henery, being upon the quarterdeck with Harman all the time; and for which service Harman I heard this day commended most seriously and most eminently by the Duke of Yorke. As also the Duke did do most utmost right to Sir Thomas Teddiman, of whom a scandal was raised, but without cause, he having behaved himself most eminently brave all the whole fight, and to extraordinary great service and purpose, having given Trump himself such a broadside as was hardly ever given to any ship.
Mings is shot through the face, and into the shoulder, where the bullet is lodged. Young Holmes’ is also ill wounded, and Atber in The Rupert.
Balty tells me the case of The Henery; and it was, indeed, most extraordinary sad and desperate.
After dinner Balty and I to my office, and there talked a great deal of this fight; and I am mightily pleased in him and have great content in, and hopes of his doing well.
Thence out to White Hall to a Committee for Tangier, but it met not. But, Lord! to see how melancholy the Court is, under the thoughts of this last overthrow (for so it is), instead of a victory, so much and so unreasonably expected.
Thence, the Committee not meeting, Creed and I down the river as low as Sir W. Warren’s, with whom I did motion a business that may be of profit to me, about buying some lighters to send down to the fleete, wherein he will assist me.
So back again, he and I talking of the late ill management of this fight, and of the ill management of fighting at all against so great a force bigger than ours, and so to the office, where we parted, but with this satisfaction that we hear the Swiftsure, Sir W. Barkeley, is come in safe to the Nore, after her being absent ever since the beginning of the fight, wherein she did not appear at all from beginning to end. But wherever she has been, they say she is arrived there well, which I pray God however may be true.
At the office late, doing business, and so home to supper and to bed.

what works are required of us
I have taken more
than I can doubt

who is without a hole
an ordinary Trump
shot through the face

bullet of a sad
and desperate greatness

buying some light to talk bigger
than an absent God


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 8 June 1666.

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