13th. Into St. Margett's [St. Margaret's.] Church, where I heard a young man play the fool upon the doctrine of Purgatory.
16th. I to my Lord Crowe's, who is very lately come to town, and he talked for half an hour of the business of the warr, wherein he is very doubtful, from our want of money, that we shall fail. And I do concur with him therein. After some little discourse of ordinary matters, I away to Sir Philip Warwick's again, and he was come in, and gone out to my Lord Treasurer's; whither I followed him, and there my business was, to be told that my Lord Treasurer hath got 10,000l. for us in the Navy, to answer our great necessities, which I did thank him for; but the sum is not considerable. The five brothers Houblons came, and Mr. Hill, to my house; and a very good supper we had, and good discourse with great pleasure. My new plate sets off my cupboard very nobly. Here they were till about eleven at night: and a fine sight it is to see these five brothers thus loving one to another, and all industrious merchants.
[Two of these brothers, Sir James and Sir John Houblon, Knts. and Aldermen, rose to great wealth; the former represented the City of London, and the latter became Lord Mayor in 1695. The following epitaph, in memory of their father, who was interred in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, is here inserted, as having been written by Mr. Pepys:-
Jacobus Houblon
Londin. Petri filius,
Ob fidem Flandria exulantis:
Ex C. Nepotibus habuit LXX superstites:
Filios V. videns mercatores florentissimos;
Ipse Londinensis Bursae Pater.
Plissime obiit Nonagenarius,
A.D. MDCLXXXII.]
19th. Mr. Deane and I did discourse about his ship Rupert, built by him there, which succeeds so well as he hath got great honour by it, and I some by recommending him; the King, Duke, and every body, saying it is the best ship that was ever built. And then he fell to explain to me his manner of casting the draught of water which a ship will draw beforehand: which is a secret the King and all admire in him; and he is the first that hath come to any certainty beforehand of foretelling the draught of water of a ship before she be launched
20th. I discoursed awhile with Mr. Yeabsly, whom I met and took up in my coach with me, and who hath this day presented my Lord Ashly with 100l. to bespeak his friendship to him in his accounts now before us; and my Lord hath received, and so I believe is as bad, as to bribes, as what the world says of him.
21st. I away in some haste to my Lord Ashly, where it is stupendous to see how favourably, and yet closely, my Lord Ashly carries himself to Mr. Yeabsly, in his business, so as I think we shall do his business for him in very good manner. But it is a most extraordinary thing to observe, and that which I would not but have had the observation of for a great deal of money.
23rd. Towards White Hall, calling in my way on my Lord Bellasses, [John Lord Bellassis, second son of Thomas Viscount Falconberg, an officer of distinction on the King's side, during the Civil War. He was afterwards Governor of Tangier, and Captain of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners. Being a Catholic, the Test Act deprived him of all his appointments in 1672; but James II, in 1684, made him first Commissioner of the Treasury. Ob, 1689.] where I come to his bedside, and he did give me a full and long account of his matters, how he kept them at Tangier. Declares himself fully satisfied with my care: seems cunningly to argue for encreasing the number of men there. Told me the whole story of his gains by the Turky prizes, which he owns he hath got about 5000l. by. Promised me the same profits Povy was to have had; and in fine, I find him a pretty subtle man; and so I left him. Staid at Sir G. Carteret's chamber till the Council rose, and then he and I, by agreement this morning, went forth in his coach by Tiburne, to the park; discoursing of the state of the Navy as to money, and the state of the Kingdom too, how ill able to raise more: and of our office, as to the condition of the officers; he giving me caution as to myself, that there are those that are my enemies as well as his, and by name my Lord Brouncker who hath said some odd speeches against me. So that he advises me to stand on my guard; which I shall do, and unless my too-much addiction to pleasure undo me, will be acute enough for any of them.
25th. A gentleman arrived here this day, Mr. Brown of St. Maloes, among other things tells me the meaning of the setting out of dogs every night out of the town walls, which are said to secure the city: but it is not so, but only to secure the anchors, cables, and ships that lie dry, which might otherwise in the night be liable to be robbed. And these dogs are set out every night, and called together in, every morning by a man with a horne, and they go in very orderly.
29th. Home this evening, but with great trouble in the streets by bonfires, it being the King's birth-day and day of Restoration; but Lord! to see the difference how many there were on the other side, and so few ours, the City side of the Temple, would make one wonder the difference between the temper of one sort of people and the other: and the difference among all between what they do now, and what it was the night when Monk came into the City. Such a night as that I never think to see again, nor think it can be.