16th (Lord's day). Up, and to my chamber, where all the morning making a catalogue of my books, which did find me work, but with great pleasure, my chamber and books being now set in very good order, and my chamber washed and cleaned, which it had not been in some months before, my business and trouble having been so much. At noon Mr. Holliard put in, and dined with my wife and me, who was a little better to-day. His company very good. His story of his love and fortune, which hath been very good and very bad in the world, well worth hearing. Much discourse also about the bad state of the Church, and how the Clergy are come to be men of no worth in the world; and, as the world do now generally discourse, they must be reformed; and I believe the Hierarchy will in a little time be shaken, whether they will or no; the King being offended with them, and set upon it, as I hear. He gone, after dinner to have my head combed, and then to my chamber and read most of the evening till pretty late, when, my wife not being well, I did lie below stairs in our great chamber, where I slept well.
17th. Up, and to the office, where all the morning till noon getting some things more ready against the afternoon for the Committee of Accounts, which did give me great trouble, to see how I am forced to dance after them in one place, and to answer Committees of Parliament in another. At noon thence toward the Committee, but meeting with Sir W. Warren in Fleet Street he and I to the Ordinary by Temple Bar and there dined together, and to talk, where he do seem to be very high now in defiance of the Board, now he says that the worst is come upon him to have his accounts brought to the Committee of Accounts, and he do reflect upon my late coldness to him, but upon the whole I do find that he is still a cunning fellow, and will find it necessary to be fair to me, and what hath passed between us of coldness to hold his tongue, which do please me very well. Thence to the Committee, where I did deliver the several things they expected from me, with great respect and show of satisfaction, and my mind thereby eased of some care. But thence I to Westminster Hall, and there spent till late at night walking to and again with many people, and there in general I hear of the great high words that were in the House on Saturday last, upon the first part of the Committee's Report about the dividing of the fleete; wherein some would have the counsels of the King to be declared, and the reasons of them, and who did give them; where Sir W. Coventry laid open to them the consequences of doing that, that the King would never have any honest and wise men ever to be of his Council. They did here in the House talk boldly of the King's bad counsellors, and how they must be all turned out, and many of them, and better; brought in: and the proceedings of the Long-Parliament in the beginning of the war were called to memory: and the King's bad intelligence was mentioned, wherein they were bitter against my Lord Arlington, saying, among other things, that whatever Morrice's was, who declared he had but L750 a-year allowed him for intelligence, the King paid too dear for my Lord Arlington's, in giving him L10,000 and a barony for it. Sir W. Coventry did here come to his defence, in the business of the letter that was sent to call back Prince Rupert, after he was divided from the fleete, wherein great delay was objected; but he did show that he sent it at one in the morning, when the Duke of York did give him the instructions after supper that night, and did clear himself well of it: only it was laid as a fault, which I know not how he removes, of not sending it by an express, but by the ordinary post; but I think I have heard he did send it to my Lord Arlington's; and that there it lay for some hours; it coming not to Sir Philip Honiwood's hand at Portsmouth till four in the afternoon that day, being about fifteen or sixteen hours in going; and about this, I think, I have heard of a falling out between my Lord Arlington, heretofore, and W. Coventry. Some mutterings I did hear of a design of dissolving the Parliament; but I think there is no ground for it yet, though Oliver would have dissolved them for half the trouble and contempt these have put upon the King and his councils. The dividing of the fleete, however, is, I hear, voted a miscarriage, and the not building a fortification at Sheernesse: and I have reason every hour to expect that they will vote the like of our paying men off by ticket; and what the consequence of that will be I know not, but I am put thereby into great trouble of mind. I did spend a little time at the Swan, and there did kiss the maid, Sarah. At noon home, and there up to my wife, who is still ill, and supped with her, my mind being mighty full of trouble for the office and my concernments therein, and so to supper and talking with W. Hewer in her chamber about business of the office, wherein he do well understand himself and our case, and it do me advantage to talk with him and the rest of my people. I to bed below as I did last night.
18th. Up by break of day, and walked down to the old Swan, where I find little Michell building, his booth being taken down, and a foundation laid for a new house, so that that street is like to be a very fine place. I drank, but did not see Betty, and so to Charing Cross stairs, and thence walked to Sir W. Coventry's,
[Sir William Coventry's love of money is said by Sir John Denham to have influenced him in promoting naval officers, who paid him for their commissions.
"Then Painter! draw cerulian Coventry
Keeper, or rather Chancellor o' th' sea
And more exactly to express his hue,
Use nothing but ultra-mariuish blue.
To pay his fees, the silver trumpet spends,
And boatswain's whistle for his place depends.
Pilots in vain repeat their compass o'er,
Until of him they learn that one point more
The constant magnet to the pole doth hold,
Steel to the magnet, Coventry to gold.
Muscovy sells us pitch, and hemp, and tar;
Iron and copper, Sweden; Munster, war;
Ashley, prize; Warwick, custom;
Cart'ret, pay;
But Coventry doth sell the fleet away."—B.]
and talked with him, who tells me how he hath been persecuted, and how he is yet well come off in the business of the dividing of the fleete, and the sending of the letter. He expects next to be troubled about the business of bad officers in the fleete, wherein he will bid them name whom they call bad, and he will justify himself, having never disposed of any but by the Admiral's liking. And he is able to give an account of all them, how they come recommended, and more will be found to have been placed by the Prince and Duke of Albemarle than by the Duke of York during the war, and as no bad instance of the badness of officers he and I did look over the list of commanders, and found that we could presently recollect thirty-seven commanders that have been killed in actuall service this war. He tells me that Sir Fr. Hollis is the main man that hath persecuted him hitherto, in the business of dividing the fleete, saying vainly that the want of that letter to the Prince hath given him that, that he shall remember it by to his grave, meaning the loss of his arme; when, God knows! he is as idle and insignificant a fellow as ever come into the fleete. He tells me that in discourse on Saturday he did repeat Sir Rob. Howard's words about rowling out of counsellors, that for his part he neither cared who they rowled in, nor who they rowled out, by which the word is become a word of use in the House, the rowling out of officers. I will remember what, in mirth, he said to me this morning, when upon this discourse he said, if ever there was another Dutch war, they should not find a Secretary; "Nor," said I, "a Clerk of the Acts, for I see the reward of it; and, thanked God! I have enough of my own to buy me a good book and a good fiddle, and I have a good wife;"—"Why," says he, "I have enough to buy me a good book, and shall not need a fiddle, because I have never a one of your good wives." I understand by him that we are likely to have our business of tickets voted a miscarriage, but [he] cannot tell me what that will signify more than that he thinks they will report them to the King and there leave them, but I doubt they will do more. Thence walked over St. James's Park to White Hall, and thence to Westminster Hall, and there walked all the morning, and did speak with several Parliament-men-among others, Birch, who is very kind to me, and calls me, with great respect and kindness, a man of business, and he thinks honest, and so long will stand by me, and every such man, to the death. My business was to instruct them to keep the House from falling into any mistaken vote about the business of tickets, before they were better informed. I walked in the Hall all the morning with my Lord Brouncker, who was in great pain there, and, the truth is, his business is, without reason, so ill resented by the generality of the House, that I was almost troubled to be seen to walk with him, and yet am able to justify him in all, that he is under so much scandal for. Here I did get a copy of the report itself, about our paying off men by tickets; and am mightily glad to see it, now knowing the state of our case, and what we have to answer to, and the more for that the House is like to be kept by other business to-day and to-morrow, so that, against Thursday, I shall be able to draw up some defence to put into some Member's hands, to inform them, and I think we may [make] a very good one, and therefore my mind is mightily at ease about it. This morning they are upon a Bill, brought in to-day by Sir Richard Temple, for obliging the King to call Parliaments every three years; or, if he fail, for others to be obliged to do it, and to keep him from a power of dissolving any Parliament in less than forty days after their first day of sitting, which is such a Bill as do speak very high proceedings, to the lessening of the King; and this they will carry, and whatever else they desire, before they will give any money; and the King must have money, whatever it cost him. I stepped to the Dog Tavern, and thither come to me Doll Lane, and there we did drink together, and she tells me she is my valentine . . . . Thence, she being gone, and having spoke with Mr. Spicer here, whom I sent for hither to discourse about the security of the late Act of 11 months' tax on which I have secured part of my money lent to Tangier. I to the Hall, and there met Sir W. Pen, and he and I to the Beare, in Drury Lane, an excellent ordinary, after the French manner, but of Englishmen; and there had a good fricassee, our dinner coming to 8s., which was mighty pretty, to my great content; and thence, he and I to the King's house, and there, in one of the upper boxes, saw "Flora's Vagarys," which is a very silly play; and the more, I being out of humour, being at a play without my wife, and she ill at home, and having no desire also to be seen, and, therefore, could not look about me. Thence to the Temple, and there we parted, and I to see Kate Joyce, where I find her and her friends in great ease of mind, the jury having this day given in their verdict that her husband died of a feaver. Some opposition there was, the foreman pressing them to declare the cause of the feaver, thinking thereby to obstruct it: but they did adhere to their verdict, and would give no reason; so all trouble is now over, and she safe in her estate, which I am mighty glad of, and so took leave, and home, and up to my wife, not owning my being at a play, and there she shews me her ring of a Turky-stone set with little sparks of dyamonds,
[The turquoise. This stone was sometimes referred to simply as the turkey, and Broderip ("Zoological Recreations") conjectured that the bird (turkey) took its name from the blue or turquoise colour of the skin about its head.]
which I am to give her, as my Valentine, and I am not much troubled at it. It will cost me near L5—she costing me but little compared with other wives, and I have not many occasions to spend on her. So to my office, where late, and to think upon my observations to-morrow, upon the report of the Committee to the Parliament about the business of tickets, whereof my head is full, and so home to supper and to bed.
19th. Up, and to the office, where all the morning drawing up an answer to the Report of the Committee for miscarriages to the Parliament touching our paying men by tickets, which I did do in a very good manner I think. Dined with my clerks at home, where much good discourse of our business of the Navy, and the trouble now upon us, more than we expected. After dinner my wife out with Deb., to buy some things against my sister's wedding, and I to the office to write fair my business I did in the morning, and in the evening to White Hall, where I find Sir W. Coventry all alone, a great while with the Duke of York, in the King's drawing-room, they two talking together all alone, which did mightily please me. Then I did get Sir W. Coventry (the Duke of York being gone) aside, and there read over my paper, which he liked and corrected, and tells me it will be hard to escape, though the thing be never so fair, to have it voted a miscarriage; but did advise me and my Lord Brouncker, who coming by did join with us, to prepare some members in it, which we shall do. Here I do hear how La Roche, a French captain, who was once prisoner here, being with his ship at Plymouth, hath played some freakes there, for which his men being beat out of the town, he hath put up his flag of defiance, and also, somewhere thereabout, did land with his men, and go a mile into the country, and did some pranks, which sounds pretty odd, to our disgrace, but we are in condition now to bear any thing. But, blessed be God! all the Court is full of the good news of my Lord Sandwich's having made a peace between Spain and Portugall, which is mighty great news, and, above all, to my Lord's honour, more than any thing he ever did; and yet I do fear it will not prevail to secure him in Parliament against incivilities there. Thence, took up my wife at Unthanke's, and so home, and there my mind being full of preparing my paper against to-morrow for the House, with an address from the office to the House, I to the office, very late, and then home to supper and to bed.
20th. Up, and to the office a while, and thence to White Hall by coach with Mr. Batelier with me, whom I took up in the street. I thence by water to Westminster Hall, and there with Lord Brouncker, Sir T. Harvy, Sir J. Minnes, did wait all the morning to speak to members about our business, thinking our business of tickets would come before the House to-day, but we did alter our minds about the petition to the House, sending in the paper to them. But the truth is we were in a great hurry, but it fell out that they were most of the morning upon the business of not prosecuting the first victory; which they have voted one of the greatest miscarriages of the whole war, though they cannot lay the fault anywhere yet, because Harman is not come home. This kept them all the morning, which I was glad of. So down to the Hall, where my wife by agreement stayed for me at Mrs. Michell's, and there was Mercer and the girl, and I took them to Wilkinson's the cook's in King Street (where I find the master of the house hath been dead for some time), and there dined, and thence by one o'clock to the King's house: a new play, "The Duke of Lerma," of Sir Robert Howard's: where the King and Court was; and Knepp and Nell spoke the prologue most excellently, especially Knepp, who spoke beyond any creature I ever, heard. The play designed to reproach our King with his mistresses, that I was troubled for it, and expected it should be interrupted; but it ended all well, which salved all. The play a well-writ and good play, only its design I did not like of reproaching the King, but altogether a very good and most serious play. Thence home, and there a little to the office, and so home to supper, where Mercer with us, and sang, and then to bed.