Add MS 78320-78322

EVELYN PAPERS. Vols CLIII-CLV. Correspondence of John Evelyn, mostly incoming letters, with some related papers, as Commissioner for Sick and Wounded Seaman; 1664-1688. Evelyn was first appointed to the Commission for Sick and Wounded Seamen on 28 October 1664, with responsibility for Kent and Sussex, in anticipation of the outbreak of the Second Dutch War. His fellow commissioners were Sir William Doyley, Bart., M.P. (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex), Bullen Reymes, M.P. (Hampshire and Dorset), and Sir Thomas Clifford, afterwards Baron Clifford and Lord Treasurer (Devon and Cornwall). Sir George Downing was added in May 1666 (Diary, III, p. 445). Each had responsibility for appointing physicians and surgeons and arranging for hospitals and other quarters for the sick and wounded seamen and prisoners of war put ashore in his district. Evelyn’s bore the brunt during the Dutch wars. At the outbreak of the Third Dutch War in March 1672 his commission was renewed (along with Doyley and Reymes, with Sir Henry Forde to replace Clifford and Thomas Knollys after Reymes's death in December 1672). His Diary details his several journeys and other events in connection with his duties, his difficulties in securing money and his lawsuit with the Commissioners' treasurer, George Cock, concerning his accounts. During the Second Dutch War, 1665-1667, his task was complicated by the plague. With the court at Oxford, Evelyn reported to the Duke of Albemarle, whose letters and instructions to him are in Add. MS 78320 below. The other letters are chiefly from his fellow commissioners, deputies, agents and medical officials at the ports of his district where the seamen were quartered (Gravesend, Rochester, Chatham, Margate, Dover, Deal and Rye), and others concerning the care of sick and wounded seamen and prisoners of war. The commission formally ceased on 28 March 1674, and thereafter the letters chiefly concern the arrears of payment. Evelyn's letterbook, Add. MS 78298 above, contains copies of a number of his letters to government ministers and officials concerning his duties, especially in 1665-1666, some of which are published in the various editions by Bray of Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence, together with Evelyn's draft for a proposed seamen’s infirmary at Chatham. But Evelyn did not copy his letters to the local agents, and only occasional drafts survive on blank sheets of their letters. For the related lists and accounts, see Add. MSS 78394-78400 below. For related correspondence and background, see the PRO, Calendar of State Papers Domestic; J. A. Shaw, `The Commission for Sick and Wounded and Prisoners 1664-1667', Mariner's Mirror, XXV (1939), pp. 306-327, J. J. Keevil, Medicine and the Navy (Edinburgh, 1957-1958), II, pp. 96-131 (neither of which use the present papers), and Particular Friends, ed. Guy de la Bedoyère (Boydell, 1997), for correspondence with Pepys. For Evelyn’s accounts and papers as commissioner, see Add. MSS 78394-78400 below.

Three volumes.