A letter was then read from Sir Thomas Modiford, Governor of Jamaica; and then the Council broke up.
Having brought an action against one Cocke, for money which he had received for me, it had been referred to an arbitration by the recommendation of that excellent good man, the Chief-Justice Hale,[27] but, this not succeeding, I went to advise with that famous lawyer, Mr. Jones, of Gray's Inn, and, 27th of May, had a trial before Lord Chief Justice Hale; and, after the lawyers had wrangled sufficiently, it was referred to a new arbitration. This was the very first suit at law that ever I had with any creature, and oh, that it might be the last!
1st June, 1671. An installation at Windsor.
6th June, 1671. I went to Council, where was produced a most exact and ample information of the state of Jamaica, and of the best expedients as to New England, on which there was a long debate; but at length it was concluded that, if any, it should be only a conciliating paper at first, or civil letter, till we had better information of the present face of things, since we understood they were a people almost upon the very brink of renouncing any dependence on the Crown.
19th June, 1671. To a splendid dinner at the great room in Deptford Trinity House, Sir Thomas Allen chosen Master, and succeeding the Earl of Craven.
LONDON
20th June, 1671. To carry Colonel Middleton to Whitehall, to my Lord Sandwich, our President, for some information which he was able to give of the state of the Colony in New England.
21st June, 1671. To Council again, when one Colonel Cartwright, a Nottinghamshire man, (formerly in commission with Colonel Nicholls) gave us a considerable relation of that country; on which the Council concluded that in the first place a letter of amnesty should be dispatched.
24th June, 1671. Constantine Huygens, Signor of Zuylichem, that excellent learned man, poet, and musician, now near eighty years of age, a vigorous, brisk man,[28] came to take leave of me before his return into Holland with the Prince, whose Secretary he was.
26th June, 1671. To Council, where Lord Arlington acquainted us that it was his Majesty's proposal we should, every one of us, contribute £20 toward building a Council chamber and conveniences somewhere in Whitehall, that his Majesty might come and sit among us, and hear our debates; the money we laid out to be reimbursed out of the contingent moneys already set apart for us, viz, £1,000 yearly. To this we unanimously consented. There came an uncertain bruit from Barbadoes of some disorder there. On my return home I stepped in at the theater to see the new machines for the intended scenes, which were indeed very costly and magnificent.