9th June, 1698. To Deptford, to see how miserably the Czar had left my house, after three months making it his Court. I got Sir Christopher Wren, the King's surveyor, and Mr. London, his gardener, to go and estimate the repairs, for which they allowed £150 in their report to the Lords of the Treasury. I then went to see the foundation of the Hall and Chapel at Greenwich Hospital.
6th August, 1698. I dined with Pepys, where was Captain Dampier,[85] who had been a famous buccaneer, had brought hither the painted Prince Job, and printed a relation of his very strange adventure, and his observations. He was now going abroad again by the King's encouragement, who furnished a ship of 290 tons. He seemed a more modest man than one would imagine by the relation of the crew he had assorted with. He brought a map of his observations of the course of the winds in the South Sea, and assured us that the maps hitherto extant were all false as to the Pacific Sea, which he makes on the south of the line, that on the north end running by the coast of Peru being extremely tempestuous.
25th September, 1698. Dr. Foy came to me to use my interest with Lord Sunderland for his being made Professor of Physic at Oxford, in the King's gift. I went also to the Archbishop in his behalf.
7th December, 1698. Being one of the Council of the Royal Society, I was named to be of the committee to wait on our new President, the Lord Chancellor, our Secretary, Dr. Sloane, and Sir R. Southwell, last Vice-President, carrying our book of statutes; the office of the President being read, his Lordship subscribed his name, and took the oaths according to our statutes as a Corporation for the improvement of natural knowledge. Then his Lordship made a short compliment concerning the honor the Society had done him, and how ready he would be to promote so noble a design, and come himself among us, as often as the attendance on the public would permit; and so we took our leave.
18th December, 1698. Very warm, but exceedingly stormy.
January, 1698-99. My cousin Pierrepoint died. She was daughter to Sir John Evelyn, of Wilts, my father's nephew; she was widow to William Pierrepoint, brother to the Marquis of Dorchester, and mother to Evelyn Pierrepoint, Earl of Kingston; a most excellent and prudent lady.
LONDON
The House of Commons persist in refusing more than 7,000 men to be a standing army, and no strangers to be in the number. This displeased the Court party. Our county member, Sir R. Onslow, opposed it also; which might reconcile him to the people, who began to suspect him.
17th February, 1699. My grandson went to Oxford with Dr. Mander, the Master of Baliol College, where he was entered a fellow-commoner.
19th February, 1699. A most furious wind, such as has not happened for many years, doing great damage to houses and trees, by the fall of which several persons were killed.