to give the King and Court good council, or to comfort the poor people that suffer; but all is dead, nothing of good in any of their minds: he bemoans it, and says he fears more ruin hangs over our heads. My wife tells me she hath bought a gown of 15s. per yard; the same, before her face, my Lady Castlemaine this day bought also, which I seemed vexed for, though I do not grudge it her, but to incline her to have Mercer again. Our business was tendered to the House to-day, and a Committee of the whole House chosen to examine our accounts, and a great many Hotspurs enquiring into it. Sir W. Pen proposes his and my looking out into Scotland about timber, and to use Pett there; for timber will be a good commodity this time of building the City. Our fleet abroad, and the Dutch too, for all we know— the weather very bad, and under the command of an unlucky man, I fear. God bless him, and the fleet under him!

27th. A very furious blowing night all the night; and my mind still mightily perplexed with dreams, and burning the rest of the town; and waking in much pain for the fleet. I to look out Penny, my tailor, to speak for a cloak and cassock for my brother, who is coming to town: and I will have him in a canonical dress, that he may be the fitter to go abroad with me. To Sir W. Coventry's, and there dined with him and Sir W. Batten, the Lieutenant of the Tower, and Mr. Thin, a pretty gentleman, going to Gottenburgh. No news of the fleet yet, but that they went by Dover on the 25th towards the Gun-fleet: but whether the Dutch be yet abroad or no, we hear not. De Ruyter is not dead, but like to do well. Most think that the gross of the French fleet are gone home again.

28th. Comes the bookbinder to gild the backs of my books. Sir W. Pen broke to me a proposition of his and my joining in a design of fetching timber and deals from Scotland, by the help of Mr. Pett upon the place: which, while London is building, will yield good money. I approve it.

29th. Sir W. Coventry and I find, to our great joy, that the wages, victuals, wear and tear, cast by the medium of the men, will come to above 3,000,000; and that the extraordinaries, which all the world will allow us, will arise to more than will justify the expence we have declared to have been at since the war; viz. £320,000.

30th. (Lord's-day.) Up, and to church, where I have not been a good while: and there the church infinitely thronged with strangers, since the fire come into our parish; but not one handsome face in all of them, as if, indeed, there was a curse, as Bishop Fuller heretofore said, upon our parish. Here I saw Mercer come into the Church, but she avoided looking up. Home, and a good dinner; and then to have my hair cut against winter close to my head, and then to Church again. A sorry sermon, and away home. This month ends with my mind full of business and concernment how this office will speed with the Parliament, which begins to be mighty severe in the examining our accounts, and the expence of the Navy this war.

October 1st. All the morning at the office, getting the list of all the ships and vessels employed since the war, for the Committee of Parliament.

2d. Sir G. Carteret tells me how our lists are referred to a Sub-committee to consider and examine, and that I am ordered to be there. With Mr. Slingsby, of

the Tower, who did inform me mightily in several things—among others, that the heightening or lowering of money is only a cheat, and do good to some particular men, which, if I can but remember how, I am now by him fully convinced of. Into the Committeechamber before the Committee sat, and there heard Birch discourse highly and understandingly about the Navy business, and a proposal made heretofore to form the Navy; but Sir W. Coventry did abundantly answer him, and is a most excellent person. By and by, the Committee met, and appointed me to attend them to-morrow, to examine our lists. This put me into a mighty fear and trouble they doing it in a very illhumour, methought. When come home, I to Sir W. Pen's, to his boy, for my book, and there find he hath it not; but delivered it to the door-keeper of the Committee for me. This, added to my former disquiet, made me stark mad, considering all the nakedness of the office lay open, in papers within those covers. But, coming to our rendezvous at the Swan tavern, in King Street, I found they have found the housekeeper, and the book simply locked up in the Court.

3rd. Waked betimes, mightily troubled in mind, and in the most true trouble that I ever was in my life, saving in the business last year of the East India prizes. So up; and, by and by, by eight o'clock comes Birch the first, with the list and books of accounts delivered in. He calls me to work, and there he and I begun ; when, by and by, comes Garraway, the first time I ever saw him, and Sir W. Thompson, and Mr. Boscawen. They to it, and I did make shift to answer them better than I expected. Sir W. Batten, Lord Brouncker,

and W. Pen, come in, but presently went out: and J. Minnes come in, and said two or three words from the purpose but to do hurt; and so away he went also, and left me all the morning with them alone to stand or fall. After dinner to work again, only the Committee and I, till dark night; and it ended with good peace and much seeming satisfaction; but I find them wise and reserved, and instructed to hit all our blots. To White Hall, and there, among the ladies, and saw my Lady Castlemaine never looked so ill, nor Mrs. Stewart neither, as in this plain natural dress. I was not pleased with either of them. Find my father and my brother come to town-my father, without my expectation, but glad I am to see him. Home, to set up all my folio books, which are come home gilt on the backs, very handsome to the eye. This night, W. Pen told me W. Batten swears he will have nothing to do with the Privateer, if his son do not go Lieutenant, which angers me and him; but we will be even with him, one way or other.

4th. Up, and mighty betimes to Sir W. Coventry, to give him an account of yesterday's work, which do give him good content. He did then tell me his speed lately to the House in his own vindication about the report of his selling of places, he having a small occasion offered him by chance; which he did desire, and took, and did it to his content, and, he says, to the House's seeming to approve of it, by their hum. He confessed how long he had done it, and how he desired to have something else and, since then, he had taken nothing, and challenged all the world. To Sir G. Carteret, and there discoursed much of the want of money, and our

being designed for destruction. How the King hath lost his power, by submitting himself to this way of examining his accounts, and is become but as a private man. He says the King is troubled at it, but they talk an entry shall be made; that it is not to be brought into example; that the King must, if they do not agree presently, make them a courageous speech, which, he says, he may do, the City of London being now burned, and himself master of an army, better than any prince before him. After dinner the bookbinder come, and I sent by him some more books to gild.

5th. The Sub-committee have made their report to the Grand Committee, and in pretty kind terms. Captain Cocke told me of a wild motion made in the House of Lords by the Duke of Buckingham, for all men that have cheated the King to be declared traitors and felons; and that my Lord Sandwich was named. This had put me into great pain: so the Vice-Chamberlain, who had heard nothing of it, having been all day in the city, away with me to White Hall; and there told me that, upon my Lord Ashly's asking their direction whether, being a peer, he should bring in his accounts to the Commons, which they did give way to, the Duke of Buckingham did move that, for the time to come, what I have written above might be declared by some fuller law than heretofore. Lord Ashly answered, that it was not the fault of present laws, but want of proper [ones]; and the Lord Chancellor said, that a better law he thought might be made: so, the House laughing, did refer it to him to bring in a bill for that purpose. 1 In the Journals of the House of Commons.