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

the kingdom, and bring in a Commonwealth, wherein he may think to be General of their Army, or to make himself King, which, he believes, he may be led to, by some advice he hath had with conjurors, which he do affect. Thence with W. Hewer, who goes up and down with me like a jaylour, but yet with great love and to my great good liking, it being my desire above all things to please my wife therein. I took up my wife and boy at Unthank’s, and from there to Hercules Pillars, and there dined, and thence to our upholster’s, about some things more to buy, and so to see our coach, and so to the looking-glass man’s, by the New Exchange, and so to buy a picture for our blue chamber chimney, and so home; and there I made my boy to read to me most of the night, to get through the Life of the Archbishop of Canterbury.4304 At supper comes Mary Batelier, and with us all the evening, prettily talking, and very innocent company she is; and she gone, we with much content to bed, and to sleep, with mighty rest all night.

24th. Up, and at the Office all the morning, and at noon home to dinner, where Mr. Gentleman, the cook, and an old woman, his third or fourth wife, come and dined with us, to enquire about a ticket of his son’s, that is dead; and after dinner, I with Mr. Hosier to my closet, to discourse of the business of balancing Storekeeper’s accounts, which he hath taken great pains in reducing to a method, to my great satisfaction; and I shall be glad both for the King’s sake and his, that the thing may be put in practice, and will do my part to promote it. That done, he gone, I to the Office, where busy till night; and then with comfort to sit with my wife, and get her to read to me, and so to supper, and to bed, with my mind at mighty ease.

25th. Up, and by coach with W. Hewer to see W. Coventry; but he gone out, I to Whitehall, and there waited on Lord Sandwich, which I have little encouragement to do, because of the difficulty of seeing him, and the little he hath to say to me when I do see him, or to anybody else, but his own idle people about him, Sir Charles Harbord, etc. Thence walked with him to Whitehall, where to the Duke of York; and there the Duke, and Wren, and I, by appointment in his closet, to read over our letter to the Office, which he heard, and signed it, and it is to my mind, Mr. Wren having made it somewhat sweeter to the Board, and yet with all the advice fully, that I did draw it up with. He [the Duke] said little more to us now, his head being full of other business; but I do see that he do continue to put a value upon my advice; and so Mr. Wren and I to his chamber, and there talked: and he seems to hope that these people, the Duke of Buckingham and Arlington, will run themselves off of their legs; they being forced to be always putting the King upon one idle thing or other, against the easiness of his nature, which he will never be able to bear, nor they to keep him to, and so will lose themselves. And, for instance of their little progress, he tells me that my Lord of Ormond is like yet to carry it, and to continue in his command in Ireland; at least, they cannot get the better of him yet. But he tells me that the Keeper4305 is wrought upon, as they say, to give his opinion for the dissolving of the Parliament, which, he thinks, will undo him in the eyes of the people. He do not seem to own the hearing or fearing of anything to be done in the Admiralty, to the lessening of the Duke of York, though he hears how the town talk’s full of it. Thence I by coach home, and there find my cousin Roger come to dine with me, and to seal his mortgage for the £500 I lend him; but he and I first walked to the ’Change, there to look for my uncle Wight, and get him to dinner with us. So home, buying a barrel of oysters at my old oyster-woman’s, in Gracious Street, but over the way to where she kept her shop before. So home, and there merry at dinner; and the money not being ready, I carried Roger Pepys to Holborn Conduit,4306 and there left him going to Stradwick’s,4307 whom we avoided to see, because of our long absence, and my wife and I to the Duke of York’s house, to see The Duchesse of Malfy, a sorry play, and sat with little pleasure, for fear of my wife’s seeing me look about, and so I was uneasy all the while, though I desire and resolve never to give her trouble of that kind more. So home, and there busy at the Office a while, and then home, where my wife to read to me, and so to supper, and to bed. This evening, to my great content, I got Sir Richard Ford to give me leave to set my coach in his yard.

26th. Up, and at the Office all the morning, where I was to have delivered the Duke of York’s letter of advice to the Board, in answer to our several answers to his great letter; but Lord Brouncker not being there, and doubtful to deliver it before the new Treasurers, I forbore it to next sitting. So home at noon to dinner, where I find Mr. Pierce