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

well pleased with the afternoon’s work. And so we broke up mightily civilly, the bride and bridegroom going to Greenwich (they keeping their dinner here only for my sake) to lie, and we home, where I to the office, and anon am on a sudden called to meet Sir W. Penn and Sir W. Coventry at the Victualling Office, which did put me out of order to be so surprised. But I went, and there Sir William Coventry did read me a letter from the Generals to the King,2951 a most scurvy letter, reflecting most upon Sir W. Coventry, and then upon me for my accounts (not that they are not true, but that we do not consider the expense of the fleet), and then of the whole office, in neglecting them and the King’s service, and this in very plain and sharp and menacing terms. I did give a good account of matters according to our computation of the expense of the fleet. I find Sir W. Coventry willing enough to accept of anything to confront the Generals. But a great supply must be made, and shall be in grace of God! But, however, our accounts here will be found the true ones. Having done here, and much work set me, I with greater content home than I thought I should have done, and so to the office a while, and then home, and a while in my new closet, which delights me every day more and more, and so late to bed.

29th. Up betimes, and there to fit some Tangier accounts, and then, by appointment, to my Lord Bellasses, but about Paul’s thought of the chant paper I should carry with me, and so fain to come back again, and did, and then met with Sir W. Penn, and with him to my Lord Bellasses, he sitting in the coach the while, while I up to my Lord and there offered him my account of the bills of exchange I had received and paid for him, wherein we agree all but one £200 bill of Vernatty’s drawing, wherein I doubt he hath endeavoured to cheate my Lord; but that will soon appear. Thence took leave, and found Sir W. Penn talking to Orange Moll, of the King’s house, who, to our great comfort, told us that they begun to act on the 18th of this month. So on to St. James’s, in the way Sir W. Penn telling me that Mr. Norton,2952 that married Sir J. Lawson’s daughter, is dead. She left £800 a year jointure, a son to inherit the whole estate. She freed from her father-in-law’s tyranny, and is in condition to helpe her mother, who needs it; of which I am glad, the young lady being very pretty. To St. James’s, and there Sir W. Coventry took Sir W. Penn and me apart, and read to us his answer to the Generals’ letter to the King that he read last night; wherein he is very plain, and states the matter in full defence of himself and of me with him, which he could not avoid; which is a good comfort to me, that I happen to be involved with him in the same cause. And then, speaking of the supplies which have been made to this fleet, more than ever in all kinds to any, even that wherein the Duke of York himself was, “Well,” says he, “if this will not do, I will say, as Sir J. Falstaffe did to the Prince, ‘Tell your father, that if he do not like this let him kill the next Piercy himself,’ ”2953 and so we broke up, and to the Duke, and there did our usual business. So I to the Park and there met Creed, and he and I walked to Westminster to the Exchequer, and thence to Whitehall talking of Tangier matters and Vernatty’s knavery, and so parted, and then I homeward and met Mr. Povy in Cheapside, and stopped and talked a good while upon the profits of the place which my Lord Bellasses hath made this last year, and what share we are to have of it, but of this all imperfect, and so parted, and I home, and there find Mrs. Mary Batelier, and she dined with us; and thence I took them to Islington, and there eat a custard; and so back to Moorfields, and showed Batelier, with my wife, Polichinello, which I like the more I see it; and so home with great content, she being a mighty good-natured, pretty woman, and thence I to the Victualling office, and there with Mr. Lewes and Willson upon our Victualling matters till ten at night, and so I home and there late writing a letter to Sir W. Coventry, and so home to supper and to bed. No news where the Dutch are. We begin to think they will steale through the Channel to meet Beaufort.2954 We think our fleet sayled yesterday, but we have no news of it.

30th. Up and all the morning at the office, dined at home, and in the afternoon, and at night till two in the morning, framing my great letter to Mr. Hayes2955 about the victualling of the fleet, about which there has been so much ado and exceptions taken by the Generals.

31st. To bed at 2 or 3 in the morning and up again at 6 to go by appointment to my Lord Bellasses, but he out of town, which vexed me. So back and got Mr. Poynter to enter into my book while I read from my last night’s notes the letter, and that being done to writing it fair. At noon home to dinner, and then the boy and I to the office, and there he read while I writ it fair, which done