24th May, 1690. City charter restored. Divers exempted from pardon.
4th June, 1690. King William set forth on his Irish expedition, leaving the Queen Regent.
10th June, 1690. Mr. Pepys read to me his Remonstrance, showing with what malice and injustice he was suspected with Sir Anthony Deane about the timber, of which the thirty ships were built by a late Act of Parliament, with the exceeding danger which the fleet would shortly be in, by reason of the tyranny and incompetency of those who now managed the Admiralty and affairs of the Navy, of which he gave an accurate state, and showed his great ability.
18th June, 1690. Fast day. Visited the Bishop of St. Asaph; his conversation was on the Vaudois in Savoy, who had been thought so near destruction and final extirpation by the French, being totally given up to slaughter, so that there were no hopes for them; but now it pleased God that the Duke of Savoy, who had hitherto joined with the French in their persecution, being now pressed by them to deliver up Saluzzo and Turin as cautionary towns, on suspicion that he might at last come into the Confederacy of the German Princes, did secretly concert measures with, and afterward declared for, them. He then invited these poor people from their dispersion among the mountains whither they had fled, and restored them to their country, their dwellings, and the exercise of their religion, and begged pardon for the ill usage they had received, charging it on the cruelty of the French who forced him to it. These being the remainder of those persecuted Christians which the Bishop of St. Asaph had so long affirmed to be the two witnesses spoken of in the Revelation, who should be killed and brought to life again, it was looked on as an extraordinary thing that this prophesying Bishop should persuade two fugitive ministers of the Vaudois to return to their country, and furnish them with £20 toward their journey, at that very time when nothing but universal destruction was to be expected, assuring them and showing them from the Apocalypse, that their countrymen should be returned safely to their country before they arrived. This happening contrary to all expectation and appearance, did exceedingly credit the Bishop's confidence how that prophecy of the witnesses should come to pass, just at the time, and the very month, he had spoken of some years before.
I afterward went with him to Mr. Boyle and Lady Ranelagh his sister, to whom he explained the necessity of it so fully, and so learnedly made out, with what events were immediately to follow, viz, the French King's ruin, the calling of the Jews to be near at hand, but that the Kingdom of Antichrist would not yet be utterly destroyed till thirty years, when Christ should begin the Millenium, not as personally and visibly reigning on earth, but that the true religion and universal peace should obtain through all the world. He showed how Mr. Brightman, Mr. Mede, and other interpreters of these events failed, by mistaking and reckoning the year as the Latins and others did, to consist of the present calculation, so many days to the year, whereas the Apocalypse reckons after the Persian account, as Daniel did, whose visions St. John all along explains as meaning only the Christian Church.
24th June, 1690. Dined with Mr. Pepys, who the next day was sent to the Gatehouse,[74] and several great persons to the Tower, on suspicion of being affected to King James; among them was the Earl of Clarendon, the Queen's uncle. King William having vanquished King James in Ireland, there was much public rejoicing. It seems the Irish in King James's army would not stand, but the English-Irish and French made great resistance. Schomberg was slain, and Dr. Walker, who so bravely defended Londonderry. King William received a slight wound by the grazing of a cannon bullet on his shoulder, which he endured with very little interruption of his pursuit. Hamilton, who broke his word about Tyrconnel, was taken. It is reported that King James is gone back to France. Drogheda and Dublin surrendered, and if King William be returning, we may say of him as Cæsar said, "Veni, vidi, vici." But to alloy much of this, the French fleet rides in our channel, ours not daring to interpose, and the enemy threatening to land.
LONDON
27th June, 1690. I went to visit some friends in the Tower, when asking for Lord Clarendon, they by mistake directed me to the Earl of Torrington, who about three days before had been sent for from the fleet, and put into the Tower for cowardice and not fighting the French fleet, which having beaten a squadron of the Hollanders, while Torrington did nothing, did now ride masters of the sea, threatening a descent.
20th July, 1690. This afternoon a camp of about 4,000 men was begun to be formed on Blackheath.
30th July, 1690. I dined with Mr. Pepys, now suffered to return to his house, on account of indisposition.