they are, yet without being impressed with money legally as they ought to be. But to see how the King's business is done; my Lord Mayor himself did scruple, at this time of extremity, to do this thing; because he had not money to pay the pressed-money to the men. He told me so himself. Nor to take up boats to carry them down through bridge to the ships I had prepared to carry them down in: insomuch that I was forced to promise to be his paymaster, and he did send his City Remembrancer afterwards to the office, and at the table, in the face of the officers, I did out of my own purse disburse £15 to pay for their pressing, and diet last night and this morning; which is a thing worth record of my Lord Mayor. Busy about this all the morning, and about the getting off men pressed by our officers of the fleet into the service; even our own men that are at the office, and the boats that carry us. So that it is now become impossible to have so much as a letter carried from place to place, or any message done for us; nay, out of Victualling ships full loaden to go down to the fleet, and out of the vessels of the officers of the Ordnance, they press men, so that for want of discipline in this respect I do fear all will be undone. Late to bed; and, while I was undressing myself, our new ugly maid Luce had like to have broke her neck in the dark, going down our upper stairs; but, which I was glad of, the poor girle did only bruise her head, but at first did lie on the ground groaning, and drawing her breath, like one a-dying.

July 1st. Comes Sir W. Pen to town, which I little expected, having invited my Lady and her daughter Pegg to dine with me to-day; which at noon they did, and Sir W. Pen with them: and pretty merry we were. And,

VOL. III.

Q

though I do not love him, yet I find it necessary to keep in with him; his good service at Shearnesse in getting out the fleet being much taken notice of, and reported to the King and Duke, even from the Prince and Duke of Albemarle themselves, and made the most of to me and them by Sir W. Coventry: therefore, I think it discretion, great and necessary discretion, to keep in with him. To the Tower several times, about the business of the pressed men, and late at it till twelve at night, shipping of them. But, Lord! how some poor women did cry; and in my life I never did see such natural expression of passion as I did here, in some women's bewailing themselves, and running to every parcel of men that were brought, one after another, to look for their husbands, and wept over every vessel that went off, thinking they might be there, and looking after the ship as far as ever they could by moone-light, that it grieved me to the heart to hear them. Besides, to see poor, patient, labouring men and housekeepers, leaving poor wives and families, taken up on a sudden by strangers, was very hard, and that without press-money, but forced against all law to be gone. It is a great tyranny.

2nd. Up betimes, and forced to go to my Lord Mayor's, about the business of the pressed men; and indeed I find him a mean man of understanding and dispatch of any publick business. Thence out of curiosity to Bridewell, to see the pressed men, where there are about 300; but so unruly that I durst not go among them and they have reason to be so, having been kept these three days prisoners, with little or no victuals, and pressed out, and, contrary to all course of law, without

press-money, and men that are not liable to it. Here I met with prating Colonel Cox, one of the City colonels, heretofore a great presbyter: but to hear how the fellow did commend himself, and the service he do the King; and, like an asse, at Paul's did take me out of my way on purpose to show me the gate, the little north gate, where he had two men shot close by him on each side, and his own hair burnt by a bullet-shot, in the insurrection of Venner, and himself escaped. Called by Pegg Pen to her house, where her father and mother, and Mrs. Norton, the second Roxalana, a fine woman, indifferent handsome, good body, and hand, and good mind, and pretends to sing, but do it not excellently. I found one of the vessels loaden with the Bridewell birds in a great mutiny, and they would not sail, not they; but with good words, and cajoling the ringleader into the Tower, where, when he was come, he was clapped up in the Hole, they were got very quietly; but I think it is much if they do not run the vessel on ground.

3d. Mr. Finch, one of the Commissioners of Excise, and I walked two hours together in the garden, talking of many things; sometimes of Mr. Povy, whose vanity, prodigality, neglect of his business, and committing it to unfit hands, hath undone him, and outed him of all his public employments, and the thing set on foot by a revivall of a business, wherein he had three or four years ago, by surprize, got the Duke of York to sign to having a sum of money paid out of the Excise, before some that was due to him, and now the money is fallen short, and the Duke never likely to be paid. This being revived hath undone Povy. Then we fell to discourse of the

Parliament, and the great men there; and, among others, Mr. Vaughan, whom he reports as a man of excellent judgement and learning, but most passionate and opiniastre. He had done himself the most wrong, though he values it not, that is, the displeasure of the King, in his standing so long against the breaking of the Act for a trienniall parliament; but yet do believe him to be a most loyall gentleman. He told me Mr. Prin's character; that he is a man of mighty labour and reading, and memory, but the worst judge of matters, or layer together of what he hath read, in the world; which I do not, however, believe him in; that he believes him very true to the King in his heart, but can never be reconciled to episcopacy; that the House do not lay much weight upon him, or any thing he says. Settling my last month's accounts, and, to my great joy, find myself worth about £5600. News come yesterday from Harwich, that the Dutch had appeared upon our coast with their fleet, and, we believe, did go to the Gun-fleete, and they are supposed to be there now; but I have heard nothing of them to-day. Yesterday, Dr. Whistler, at Sir W. Pen's, told me that Alexander Broome, the great song-maker, is lately dead.

4th. Thanks be to God! the plague is, as I hear, encreased but two this week; but in the country, in several places, it rages mightily, and particularly in Colchester, where it hath long been, and is believed will quite depopulate the place. With the Duke, all of us, discoursing about the places where to build ten great ships: the King and Council have resolved on none to be under third-rates; but it is impossible to do it, unless

we have more money towards the doing it than yet we

But, however, the show must be

have in any view. made to the world. In the evening, Sir W. Pen came to me, and we walked together, and talked of the late fight. I find him very plain, that the whole conduct of the late fight was ill; that two-thirds of the commanders of the whole fleet have told him so: they all saying, that they durst not oppose it at the Council of War, for fear of being called cowards, though it was wholly against their judgement to fight that day, with the disproportion of force; and then, we not being able to use one gun of our lower tier, which was a greater disproportion than the other. Besides, we might very well have staid in the Downs without fighting, or any where else, till the Prince could have come up to them; or, at least, till the weather was fair, that we might have the benefit of our whole force in the ships that we had. He says, three things must be remedied, or else we shall be undone by this fleet. 1. That we must fight in a line, whereas we fight promiscuously, to our utter and demonstrable ruine: the Dutch fighting otherwise; and we, whenever we beat them.-2. We must not desert ships of our own in distress, as we did, for that makes a captain desperate, and he will fling away his ship, when there are no hopes left him of succour.3. That ships, when they are a little shattered, must not take the liberty to come in of themselves, but refit themselves the best they can, and stay out-many of our ships coming in with very small disableness. He told me that our very commanders, nay, our very flagofficers, do stand in need of exercising among themselves, and discoursing the business of commanding a