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

was catched up, otherwise I had broke my leg; for which mercy the Lord be praised! So at Fenchurch I found my coach staying for me, and so home, where the little girle hath looked to the house well, but no wife come home, which made me begin to fear [for] her, the water being very rough, and cold and dark. But by and by she and her company come in all well, at which I was glad, though angry. Thence I to Sir W. Batten’s, and there sat late with him, Sir R. Ford, and Sir John Robinson; the last of whom continues still the same foole he was, crying up what power he has in the City, in knowing their temper, and being able to do what he will with them. It seems the City did last night very freely lend the King £100,000 without any security but the King’s word, which was very noble. But this loggerhead and Sir R. Ford would make us believe that they did it. Now Sir R. Ford is a cunning man, and makes a foole of the other, and the other believes whatever the other tells him. But, Lord! to think that such a man should be Lieutenant of the Tower, and so great a man as he is, is a strange thing to me. With them late and then home and with my wife to bed, after supper.

27th. Up and to the office, where all the morning busy. At noon, Sir G. Carteret, Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten, Sir W. Penn, and myself, were treated at the Dolphin by Mr. Foly,2321 the ironmonger, where a good plain dinner, but I expected musique, the missing of which spoiled my dinner, only very good merry discourse at dinner. Thence with Sir G. Carteret by coach to Whitehall to a Committee of Tangier, and thence back to London, and ’light in Cheapside and I to Nellson’s, and there met with a rub at first, but took him out to drink, and there discoursed to my great content so far with him that I think I shall agree with him for Bewpers to serve the Navy with. So with great content home and to my office, where late, and having got a great cold in my head yesterday home to supper and to bed.

28th. Slept ill all night, having got a very great cold the other day at Woolwich in [my] head, which makes me full of snot. Up in the morning, and my tailor brings me home my fine, new, coloured cloth suit, my cloake lined with plush, as good a suit as ever I wore in my life, and mighty neat, to my great content. To my office, and there all the morning. At noon to Nellson’s, and there bought 20 pieces more of Bewpers, and hope to go on with him to a contract. Thence to the ’Change a little, and thence home with Luellin to dinner, where Mr. Deane met me by appointment, and after dinner he and I up to my chamber, and there hard at discourse, and advising him what to do in his business at Harwich, and then to discourse of our old business of ships and taking new rules of him to my great pleasure, and he being gone I to my office a little, and then to see Sir W. Batten, who is sick of a greater cold than I, and thither comes to me Mr. Holliard, and into the chamber to me, and, poor man (beyond all I ever saw of him), was a little drunk, and there sat talking and finding acquaintance with Sir W. Batten and my Lady by relations on both sides, that there we stayed very long. At last broke up, and he home much overcome with drink, but well enough to get well home. So I home to supper and to bed.

29th. Up, and it being my Lord Mayor’s show,2322 my boy and three maids went out; but it being a very foule, rainy day, from morning till night, I was sorry my wife let them go out. All the morning at the office. At dinner at home. In the afternoon to the office again, and about 9 o’clock by appointment to the King’s Head tavern upon Fish Street Hill, whither Mr. Wolfe (and Parham by his means) met me to discourse about the Fishery, and great light I had by Parham, who is a little conceited, but a very knowing man in his way, and in the general fishing trade of England. Here I stayed three hours, and eat a barrel of very fine oysters of Wolfe’s giving me, and so, it raining hard, home and to my office, and then home to bed. All the talk is that De Ruyter is come overland home with six or eight of his captaines to command here at home, and their ships kept abroad in the Straights; which sounds as if they had a mind to do something with us.

30th (Lord’s day). Up, and this morning put on my new, fine, coloured cloth suit, with my cloake lined with plush, which is a dear and noble suit, costing me about £17. To church, and then home to dinner, and after dinner to a little musique with my boy, and so to church with my wife, and so home, and with her all the evening reading and at musique with my boy with great pleasure, and so to supper, prayers, and to bed.

31st. Very busy all the morning, at noon Creed to me and dined with me, and then he and I to Whitehall, there to a Committee of Tangier, where it is worth remembering when Mr. Coventry proposed the retrenching some of the charge of the horse, the first word asked by