5th. So to bed about two o’clock, and then up about seven and to White Hall, where read over my report to Lord Arlington and Berkeley, and then afterward at the Council Board with great good liking, but, Lord! how it troubled my eyes, though I did not think I could have done it, but did do it, and was not very bad afterward. So home to dinner, and thence out to the Duke of York’s playhouse, and there saw “The Guardian;” formerly the same, I find, that was called “Cutter of Coleman Street;” a silly play. And thence to Westminster Hall, where I met Fitzgerald; and with him to a tavern, to consider of the instructions for Sir Thomas Allen, against his going to Algiers; he and I being designed to go down to Portsmouth by the Council’s order, and by and by he and I went to the Duke of York, who orders me to go down to-morrow morning. So I away home, and there bespeak a coach; and so home and to bed, my wife being abroad with the Mercers walking in the fields, and upon the water.
6th. Waked betimes, and my wife, at an hour’s warning, is resolved to go with me, which pleases me, her readiness. But, before ready, comes a letter from Fitzgerald, that he is seized upon last night by an order of the General’s by a file of musqueteers, and kept prisoner in his chamber. The Duke of York did tell me of it to-day: it is about a quarrel between him and Witham, and they fear a challenge: so I to him, and sent my wife by the coach round to Lambeth. I lost my labour going to his lodgings, and he in bed: and, staying a great while for him, I at last grew impatient, and would stay no longer; but to St. James’s to Mr. Wren, to bid him “God be with you!” and so over the water to Fox Hall; and there my wife and Deb. come and took me up, and we away to Gilford, losing our way for three or four mile, about Cobham. At Gilford we dined; and, I shewed them the hospitall there of Bishop Abbot’s, and his tomb in the church, which, and the rest of the tombs there, are kept mighty clean and neat, with curtains before them. So to coach again, and got to Lippock,2 late over Hindhead, having an old man, a guide, in the coach with us; but got thither with great fear of being out of our way, it being ten at night. Here good, honest people; and after supper, to bed....
7th. Up, and to coach, and with a guide to Petersfield, where I find Sir Thomas Allen and Mr. Tippets come; the first about the business, the latter only in respect to me; as also Fitzgerald, who come post all last night, and newly arrived here. We four sat down presently to our business, and in an hour despatched all our talk; and did inform Sir Thomas Allen well in it, who, I perceive, in serious matters, is a serious man: and tells me he wishes all we are told be true, in our defence; for he finds by all, that the Turks have, to this day, been very civil to our merchant-men everywhere; and, if they would have broke with us, they never had such an opportunity over our rich merchant-men, as lately, coming out of the Streights. Then to dinner, and pretty merry: and here was Mr. Martin, the purser, and dined with us, and wrote some things for us. And so took coach again back; Fitzgerald with us, whom I was pleased with all the day, with his discourse of his observations abroad, as being a great soldier and of long standing abroad: and knows all things and persons abroad very well—I mean, the great soldiers of France, and Spain, and Germany; and talks very well. Come at night to Gilford, where the Red Lyon so full of people, and a wedding, that the master of the house did get us a lodging over the way, at a private house, his landlord’s, mighty neat and fine; and there supped and talked with the landlord and his wife: and so to bed with great content, only Fitzgerald lay at the Inne. So to bed.
8th. Up, and I walked out, and met Uncle Wight, whom I sent to last night, and Mr. Wight coming to see us, and I walked with them back to see my aunt at Katherine Hill, and there walked up and down the hill and places, about: but a dull place, but good ayre, and the house dull. But here I saw my aunt, after many days not seeing her—I think, a year or two; and she walked with me to see my wife. And here, at the Red Lyon, we all dined together, and mighty merry, and then parted: and we home to Fox Hall, where Fitzgerald and I ‘light, and by water to White Hall, where the Duke of York being abroad, I by coach and met my wife, who went round, and after doing at the office a little, and finding all well at home, I to bed. I hear that Colbert, the French Ambassador, is come, and hath been at Court incognito. When he hath his audience, I know not.
9th (Lord’s day). Up, and walked to Holborne, where got John Powell’s coach at the Black Swan, and he attended me at St. James’s, where waited on the Duke of York: and both by him and several of the Privy-Council, beyond expectation, I find that my going to Sir Thomas Allen was looked upon as a thing necessary: and I have got some advantage by it, among them. Thence to White Hall, and thence to visit Lord Brouncker, and back to White Hall, where saw the Queen and ladies; and so, with Mr. Slingsby, to Mrs. Williams’s, thinking to dine with Lord Brouncker there, but did not, having promised my wife to come home, though here I met Knepp, to my great content. So home; and, after dinner, I took my wife and Deb. round by Hackney, and up and down to take the ayre; and then home, and made visits to Mrs. Turner, and Mrs. Mercer, and Sir W. Pen, who is come from Epsom not well, and Sir J. Minnes, who is not well neither. And so home to supper, and to set my books a little right, and then to bed. This day Betty Michell come and dined with us, the first day after her lying in, whom I was glad to see.
10th. Up, and by water to White Hall, and thence to Sir W. Coventry, but he is gone out of town this morning, so thence to my Lord Arlington’s house, the first time I there since he come thither, at Goring House, a very fine, noble place; and there he received me in sight of several Lords with great respect. I did give him an account of my journey; and here, while I waited for him a little, my Lord Orrery took notice of me, and begun discourse of hangings, and of the improvement of shipping: I not thinking that he knew me, but did then discover it, with a mighty compliment of my abilities and ingenuity, which I am mighty proud of; and he do speak most excellently. Thence to Westminster Hall, and so by coach to the old Exchange, and there did several businesses, and so home to dinner, and then abroad to Duck Lane, where I saw my belle femme of the book vendor, but had no opportunity para hazer con her. So away to Cooper’s, where I spent all the afternoon with my wife and girl, seeing him-make an end of her picture, which he did Jo my great content, though not so great as, I confess, I expected, being not satisfied in the greatness of the resemblance, nor in the blue garment: but it is most certainly a most rare piece of work, as to the painting. He hath L30 for his work—and the chrystal, and case, and gold case comes to L8 3s. 4d.; and which I sent him this night, that I might be out of debt. Thence my people home, and I to Westminster Hall about a little business, and so by water home [to] supper, and my wife to read a ridiculous book I bought today of the History of the Taylors’ Company,
[The title of this book was, “The Honour of the Merchant Taylors.”
Wherein is set forth the noble acts, valliant deeds, and heroick
performances of Merchant Taylors in former ages; their honourable
loves, and knightly adventures, their combating of foreign enemies
and glorious successes in honour of the English nation: together
with their pious....]
and all the while Deb. did comb my head, and I did toker her with my main para very great pleasure, and so to bed.
11th. Up, and by water to Sir W. Coventry to visit him, whom I find yet troubled at the Commissioners of Accounts, about this business of Sir W. Warren, which is a ridiculous thing, and can come to nothing but contempt, and thence to Westminster Hall, where the Parliament met enough to adjourne, which they did, to the 10th of November next, and so by water home to the office, and so to dinner, and thence at the Office all the afternoon till night, being mightily pleased with a little trial I have made of the use of a tube-spectacall of paper, tried with my right eye. This day I hear that, to the great joy of the Nonconformists, the time is out of the Act against them, so that they may meet: and they have declared that they will have a morning lecture
[During the troubled reign of Charles I., the House of Commons gave
parishioners the right of appointing lecturers at the various
churches without the consent of rector or vicar, and this naturally
gave rise to many quarrels. In the early period of the war between
the king and the parliament, a course of sermons or lectures was
projected in aid of the parliamentary cause. These lectures, which
were preached by eminent Presbyterian divines at seven o’clock on
the Sunday mornings, were commenced in the church of St. Mary
Magdalen in Milk Street, but were soon afterwards removed to St.
Giles’s, Cripplegate. After the Restoration the lectures were
collected in four volumes, and published under the title of the
“Cripplegate Morning Exercises,” vol. i. in 1661; vol. ii. in 1674;
vol. iii. in 1682; and vol. iv. in 1690. In addition there were two
volumes which form a supplement to the work, viz., “The Morning
Exercises methodized,” preached at St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields, edited
by the Rev. Thomas Case in 1660, and the “Exercises against Popery,”
preached in Southwark, and published in 1675 (see Demon’s “Records
of St. Giles’s, Crinnlegate,” 1883, pp. 55-56).]