and changing of my tallys make mighty troublesome; but, however, I did end
them with great satisfaction to myself. At noon, without staying to eat
my dinner, I down by water to Deptford, and there coming find Sir W.
Batten and Sir Jeremy Smith (whom the dispatch of the Loyall London
detained) at dinner at Greenwich at the Beare Taverne, and thither I to
them and there dined with them. Very good company of strangers there was,
but I took no great pleasure among them, being desirous to be back again.
So got them to rise as soon as I could, having told them the newes Sir W.
Coventry just now wrote me to tell them, which is, that the Dutch are
certainly come out. I did much business at Deptford, and so home, by an
old poor man, a sculler, having no oares to be got, and all this day on
the water entertained myself with the play of Commenius, and being come
home did go out to Aldgate, there to be overtaken by Mrs. Margot Pen in
her father's coach, and my wife and Mercer with her, and Mrs. Pen carried
us to two gardens at Hackny, (which I every day grow more and more in love
with,) Mr. Drake's one, where the garden is good, and house and the
prospect admirable; the other my Lord Brooke's, where the gardens are much
better, but the house not so good, nor the prospect good at all. But the
gardens are excellent; and here I first saw oranges grow: some green, some
half, some a quarter, and some full ripe, on the same tree, and one fruit
of the same tree do come a year or two after the other. I pulled off a
little one by stealth (the man being mighty curious of them) and eat it,
and it was just as other little green small oranges are; as big as half
the end of my little finger. Here were also great variety of other
exotique plants, and several labarinths, and a pretty aviary. Having done
there with very great pleasure we away back again, and called at the
Taverne in Hackny by the church, and there drank and eate, and so in the
Goole of the evening home. This being the first day of my putting on my
black stuff bombazin suit, and I hope to feel no inconvenience by it, the
weather being extremely hot. So home and to bed, and this night the first
night of my lying without a waistcoat, which I hope I shall very well
endure. So to bed. This morning I did with great pleasure hear Mr.
Caesar play some good things on his lute, while he come to teach my boy
Tom, and I did give him 40s. for his encouragement.
26th. Up and to my office betimes, and there all the morning, very busy
to get out the fleete, the Dutch being now for certain out, and we shall
not, we thinke, be much behindhand with them. At noon to the 'Change
about business, and so home to dinner, and after dinner to the setting my
Journall to rights, and so to the office again, where all the afternoon
full of business, and there till night, that my eyes were sore, that I
could not write no longer. Then into the garden, then my wife and Mercer
and my Lady Yen and her daughter with us, and here we sung in the darke
very finely half an houre, and so home to supper and to bed. This
afternoon, after a long drowth, we had a good shower of rain, but it will
not signify much if no more come. This day in the morning come Mr.
Chichly to Sir W. Coventry, to tell him the ill successe of the guns made
for the Loyall London; which is, that in the trial every one of the great
guns, the whole cannon of seven (as I take it), broke in pieces, which is
a strange mishap, and that which will give more occasion to people's
discourse of the King's business being done ill. This night Mary my
cookemayde, that hath been with us about three months, but find herself
not able to do my worke, so is gone with great kindnesse away, and another
(Luce) come, very ugly and plaine, but may be a good servant for all that.
27th. Up, and to my office awhile, and then down the river a little way
to see vessels ready for the carrying down of 400 land soldiers to the
fleete. Then back to the office for my papers, and so to St. James's,
where we did our usual attendance on the Duke. Having done with him, we
all of us down to Sir W. Coventry's chamber (where I saw his father my
Lord Coventry's picture hung up, done by Stone, who then brought it home.
It is a good picture, drawn in his judge's robes, and the great seale by
him. And while it was hanging up, "This," says Sir W. Coventry, merrily,
"is the use we make of our fathers,") to discourse about the proposition
of serving us with hempe, delivered in by my Lord Brouncker as from an
unknown person, though I know it to be Captain Cocke's. My Lord and Sir
William Coventry had some earnest words about it, the one promoting it for
his private ends, being, as Cocke tells me himself, to have L500 if the
bargain goes on, and I am to have as much, and the other opposing it for
the unseasonableness of it, not knowing at all whose the proposition is,
which seems the more ingenious of the two. I sat by and said nothing,
being no great friend to the proposition, though Cocke intends me a
convenience by it. But what I observed most from the discourse was this
of Sir W. Coventry, that he do look upon ourselves in a desperate
condition. The issue of all standing upon this one point, that by the
next fight, if we beat, the Dutch will certainly be content to take eggs
for their money (that was his expression); or if we be beaten, we must be
contented to make peace, and glad if we can have it without paying too
dear for it. And withall we do rely wholly upon the Parliament's giving
us more money the next sitting, or else we are undone. Being gone hence,
I took coach to the Old Exchange, but did not go into it, but to Mr.
Cade's, the stationer, stood till the shower was over, it being a great
and welcome one after so much dry weather. Here I understand that Ogleby
is putting out some new fables of his owne, which will be very fine and
very satyricall. Thence home to dinner, and after dinner carried my wife
to her sister's and I to Mr. Hales's, to pay for my father's picture,
which cost me L10 the head and 25s. the frame. Thence to Lovett's, who
has now done something towards the varnishing of single paper for the
making of books, which will do, I think, very well. He did also carry me
to a Knight's chamber in Graye's Inne, where there is a frame of his
making, of counterfeite tortoise shell, which indeed is most excellently
done. Then I took him with me to a picture shop to choose a print for him
to vernish, but did not agree for one then. Thence to my wife to take her
up and so carried her home, and I at the office till late, and so to
supper with my wife and to bed. I did this afternoon visit my Lord
Bellasses, who professes all imaginable satisfaction in me. He spoke
dissatisfiedly with Creed, which I was pleased well enough with. My Lord
is going down to his garrison to Hull, by the King's command, to put it in
order for fear of an invasion which course I perceive is taken upon the
sea-coasts round; for we have a real apprehension of the King of France's
invading us.
28th. Up, and at the office all the morning. At noon home to dinner, and
after dinner abroad to Lumbard Streete, there to reckon with Sir Robert
Viner for some money, and did sett all straight to my great content, and
so home, and all the afternoon and evening at the office, my mind full at
this time of getting my accounts over, and as much money in my hands as I
can, for a great turne is to be feared in the times, the French having
some great design (whatever it is) in hand, and our necessities on every
side very great. The Dutch are now known to be out, and we may expect
them every houre upon our coast. But our fleete is in pretty good
readinesse for them.
29th. Up, and within doors most of the morning, sending a porter
(Sanders) up and down to several people to pay them money to clear my
month's debts every where, being mighty desirous to have all clear so soon
as I can, and to that end did so much in settling my Tangier accounts
clear. At noon dined, having first been down at Deptford and did a little
business there and back again. After dinner to White Hall to a Committee
of Tangier, but I come a little too late, they were up, so I to several
places about business, among others to Westminster Hall, and there did
meet with Betty Michell at her own mother's shop. I would fain have
carried her home by water, but she was to sup at that end of the town. So
I away to White Hall, and thence, the Council being up, walked to St.
James's, and there had much discourse with Sir W. Coventry at his chamber,
who I find quite weary of the warr, decries our having any warr at all, or
himself to have been any occasion of it, that he hopes this will make us
shy of any warr hereafter, or to prepare better for it, believes that one
overthrow on the Dutch side would make them desire peace, and that one on
ours will make us willing to accept of one: tells me that Commissioner
Pett is fallen infinitely under the displeasure of the Prince and Duke of
Albemarle, not giving them satisfaction in the getting out of the fleete,
and that the complaint he believes is come to the King, and by Sir W.
Coventry's discourse I find he do concur in it, and speaks of his having
of no authority in the place where he is, and I do believe at least it
will end in his being removed to some other yarde, and I am not sorry for
it, but do fear that though he deserves as bad, yet at this time the blame
may not be so well deserved. Thence home and to the office; where I met
with a letter from Dover, which tells me (and it did come by expresse)
that newes is brought over by a gentleman from Callice that the Dutch
fleete, 130 sail, are come upon the French coast; and that the country is
bringing in picke-axes, and shovells, and wheel-barrows into Callice; that
there are 6,000 men armed with head, back, and breast (Frenchmen) ready to
go on board the Dutch fleete, and will be followed by 12,000 more. That
they pretend they are to come to Dover; and that thereupon the Governor of
Dover Castle is getting the victuallers' provision out of the towne into
the Castle to secure it. But I do think this is a ridiculous conceit; but
a little time will show. At night home to supper and to bed,
30th. Up, and to the office, and mightily troubled all this morning with
going to my Lord Mayor (Sir Thomas Bludworth,
[As his conduct during the Great Fire fully proved, when he is said
to have boasted that he would extinguish the flames by the same
means to which Swift tells us Gulliver had recourse at Lilliput.--B.]
a silly man, I think), and other places, about getting shipped some men
that they have these two last nights pressed in the City out of houses:
the persons wholly unfit for sea, and many of them people of very good
fashion, which is a shame to think of, and carried to Bridewell they are,
yet without being impressed with money legally as they ought to be. But
to see how the King's business is done; my Lord Mayor himself did scruple
at this time of extremity to do this thing, because he had not money to
pay the pressed-money to the men, he told me so himself; nor to take up
boats to carry them down through bridge to the ships I had prepared to
carry them down in; insomuch that I was forced to promise to be his
paymaster, and he did send his City Remembrancer afterwards to the office,
and at the table, in the face of the officers, I did there out of my owne
purse disburse L15 to pay for their pressing and diet last night and this
morning; which is a thing worth record of my Lord Mayor. Busy about this
all the morning, at noon dined and then to the office again, and all the
afternoon till twelve at night full of this business and others, and among
these others about the getting off men pressed by our officers of the
fleete into the service; even our owne men that are at the office, and the
boats that carry us. So that it is now become impossible to have so much
as a letter carried from place to place, or any message done for us: nay,
out of Victualling ships full loaden to go down to the fleete, and out of
the vessels of the officers of the Ordnance, they press men, so that for
want of discipline in this respect I do fear all will be undone. Vexed
with these things, but eased in mind by my ridding of a great deale of
business from the office, I late home to supper and to bed. But before I
was in bed, while I was undressing myself, our new ugly mayde, Luce, had
like to have broke her necke in the darke, going down our upper stairs;
but, which I was glad of, the poor girle did only bruise her head, but at
first did lie on the ground groaning and drawing her breath, like one
a-dying. This month I end in much hurry of business, but in much more
trouble in mind to thinke what will become of publique businesses, having
so many enemys abroad, and neither force nor money at all, and but little
courage for ourselves, it being really true that the spirits of our seamen
and commanders too are really broke by the last defeate with the Dutch,
and this is not my conjecture only, but the real and serious thoughts of
Sir G. Carteret and Sir W. Coventry, whom I have at distinct times heard
the same thing come from with a great deale of grief and trouble. But,
lastly, I am providing against a foule day to get as much money into my
hands as I can, at least out of the publique hands, that so, if a turne,
which I fear, do come, I may have a little to trust to. I pray God give
me good successe in my choice how to dispose of what little I have, that I
may not take it out of publique hands, and put it into worse.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
A cat will be a cat still
And if ever I fall on it again, I deserve to be undone
Apprehension of the King of France's invading us
As very a gossip speaking of her neighbours as any body
Baited at Islington, and so late home about 11 at night
Called at a little ale-house, and had an eele pye
Checking her last night in the coach in her long stories
Foretelling the draught of water of a ship before she be launche
Great deale of tittle tattle discourse to little purpose
He is such innocent company
Here I first saw oranges grow
I do not value her, or mind her as I ought
I to bed even by daylight
Long petticoat dragging under their men's coats
Mightily pleased with myself for the business that I have done
Mightily vexed at my being abroad with these women
Never fought with worse officers in his life
Not being well pleased with her over free and loose company
Now very big, and within a fortnight of lying down
Out also to and fro, to see and be seen
Providing against a foule day to get as much money into my hands
Rejoiced over head and ears in this good newes
Requisite I be prepared against the man's friendship
Sang till about twelve at night, with mighty pleasure
Send up and down for a nurse to take the girle home
Shy of any warr hereafter, or to prepare better for it
So back again home to supper and to bed with great pleasure
So home and to supper with beans and bacon and to bed
That I may look as a man minding business
There did what I would with her
There did what 'je voudrais avec' her . . . .
Think that we are beaten in every respect
This is the use we make of our fathers
Took him home the money, and, though much to my grief
Unless my too-much addiction to pleasure undo me
What itching desire I did endeavour to see Bagwell's wife
Young man play the foole upon the doctrine of purgatory