The Diary by Samuel Pepys (children's ebooks online TXT) 📕

great pleasure to me for their good discourse in anything of the navy I have a mind to talk of. After dinner by water from the Tower to Whitehall, there to attend the Duke of York as usual, and particularly in a fresh complaint the Commissioners of the Treasury do make to him, and by and by to the Council this day of our having prepared certificates on the Exchequer to the further sum of near £50,000, and soon as we had done with the Duke of York we did attend the Council; and were there called in, and did hear Mr. Solicitor [General] make his Report to the Council in the business; which he did in a most excellent manner of words, but most cruelly severe against us, and so were some of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, as men guilty of a practice with the tradesmen, to the King’s prejudice. I was unwilling to enter into a contest with them; but took advantage of two or three words last spoke, and brought it to a short issue in good words, that if we had the King’s order to hold our hands, we would, which did end the matter: and they all resolved we should have it, and so it ended: and so we away; I vexed that I did not speak more in a cause so fit to be spoke in, and wherein we had so much advantage; but perhaps I might have provoked the Solicitor and the Commissioners of the Treasury, and therefore, since, I am not sorry that I forbore. Thence my Lord Brouncker and I to the Duke of York’s playhouse, and there saw the latter part of The Master and the Man, and thence by coach to Duck Lane, to look out for Marsanne,3973 in French, a man that has wrote well of musique, but it is not to be had, but I have given order for its being sent for over, and I did here buy Des Cartes his little treatise of musique, and so home, and there to read a little, and eat a little, though I find that my having so little taste do make me so far neglect eating that, unless company invite, I do not love to spend time upon eating, and so bring emptiness and the Cholique. So to bed. This day I hear that Prince Rupert and Holmes do go to sea: and by this there is a seeming friendship and peace among our great seamen; but the devil a bit is there any love among them, or can be.

4th. Up betimes, and by coach towards Whitehall, and took Aldgate Street in my way, and there called upon one Hayward, that makes virginalls, and did there like of a little espinette, and will have him finish it for me; for I had a mind to a small harpsichon, but this takes up less room, and will do my business as to finding out of chords, and I am very well pleased that I have found it. Thence to Whitehall, and after long waiting did get a small running Committee of Tangier, where I stayed but little, and little done but the correcting two or three egregious faults in the Charter for Tangier after it had so long lain before the Council and been passed there and drawn up by the Attorney General, so slightly are all things in this age done. Thence home to the office by water, where we sat till noon, and then I moved we might go to the Duke of York and the King presently to get out their order in writing that was ordered us yesterday about the business of certificates, that we might be secure against the tradesmen who (Sir John Banks by name) have told me this day that they will complain in Parliament against us for denying to do them right. So we rose of a sudden, being mighty sensible of this inconvenience we are liable to should we delay to give them longer, and yet have no order for our indemnity. I did dine with Sir W. Penn, where my Lady Batten did come with desire of meeting me there, and speaking with me about the business of the £500 we demand of her for the Chest. She do protest, before God, she never did see the account, but that it was as her husband in his lifetime made it, and he did often declare to her his expecting £500, and that we could not deny it him for his pains in that business, and that he hath left her worth nothing of his own in the world, and that therefore she could pay nothing of it, come what will come, but that he hath left her a beggar, which I am sorry truly for, though it is a just judgment upon people that do live so much beyond themselves in housekeeping and vanity, as they did. I did give her little answer, but generally words that might not trouble her, and so to dinner, and after dinner Sir W. Penn and I away by water to Whitehall, and there did attend the Duke of York, and he did carry us to the King’s lodgings: but he was asleep in his closet; so we stayed in the Green-Roome, where the Duke of York did tell us what rules he had, of knowing the weather, and did now tell us we should have rain before tomorrow, it having been a dry season for some time, and so it did rain all night almost; and pretty rules he hath, and told Brouncker and me some of them, which were such as no reason seems ready to be given. By and by the King comes out, and he did easily agree to what we moved, and would have the Commissioners of the Navy to meet us with him tomorrow morning: and then