fall upon some course of doing something for my disease of the wind, which
grows upon me every day more and more. Thence to my Lord Sandwich's, and
while he was dressing I below discoursed with Captain Cooke, and I think
if I do find it fit to keep a boy at all I had as good be supplied from
him with one as any body. By and by up to my Lord, and to discourse about
his going to sea, and the message I had from Mr. Coventry to him. He
wonders, as he well may, that this course should be taken, and he every
day with the Duke, who, nevertheless, seems most friendly to him, who hath
not yet spoke one word to my Lord of his desire to have him go to sea. My
Lord do tell me clearly that were it not that he, as all other men that
were of the Parliament side, are obnoxious to reproach, and so is forced
to bear what otherwise he would not, he would never suffer every thing to
be done in the Navy, and he never be consulted; and it seems, in the
naming of all these commanders for this fleete, he hath never been asked
one question. But we concluded it wholly inconsistent with his honour not
to go with this fleete, nor with the reputation which the world hath of
his interest at Court; and so he did give me commission to tell Mr.
Coventry that he is most willing to receive any commands from the Duke in
this fleete, were it less than it is, and that particularly in this
service. With this message I parted, and by coach to the office, where I
found Mr. Coventry, and told him this. Methinks, I confess, he did not
seem so pleased with it as I expected, or at least could have wished, and
asked me whether I had told my Lord that the Duke do not expect his going,
which I told him I had. But now whether he means really that the Duke, as
he told me the other day, do think the Fleete too small for him to take or
that he would not have him go, I swear I cannot tell. But methinks other
ways might have been used to put him by without going in this manner about
it, and so I hope it is out of kindness indeed. Dined at home, and so to
the office, where a great while alone in my office, nobody near, with
Bagwell's wife of Deptford, but the woman seems so modest that I durst not
offer any courtship to her, though I had it in my mind when I brought her
in to me. But I am resolved to do her husband a courtesy, for I think he
is a man that deserves very well. So abroad with my wife by coach to St.
James's, to one Lady Poultny's, where I found my Lord, I doubt, at some
vain pleasure or other. I did give him a short account of what I had done
with Mr. Coventry, and so left him, and to my wife again in the coach, and
with her to the Parke, but the Queene being gone by the Parke to
Kensington, we staid not but straight home and to supper (the first time I
have done so this summer), and so to my office doing business, and then to
my monthly accounts, where to my great comfort I find myself better than I
was still the last month, and now come to L930. I was told to-day, that
upon Sunday night last, being the King's birth-day, the King was at my
Lady Castlemayne's lodgings (over the hither-gates at Lambert's lodgings)
dancing with fiddlers all night almost; and all the world coming by taking
notice of it, which I am sorry to hear. The discourse of the town is only
whether a warr with Holland or no, and we are preparing for it all we can,
which is but little. Myself subject more than ordinary to pain by winde,
which makes me very sad, together with the trouble which at present lies
upon me in my father's behalf, rising from the death of my brother, which
are many and great. Would to God they were over!
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