and Sir Jos. Jordan: Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Allen; and under him Sir Christopher Mings, and Captain Harman. Walked round to White Hall, the Park being quite locked up; and I observed a house shut up this day in the Pell Mell, where heretofore, in Cromwell's time, we young men used to keep our weekly clubs. Sir G. Carteret do now take all my Lord Sandwich's business to heart, and makes it the same with his own. He tells me how at Chatham it was proposed to my Lord Sandwich to be joined with the Prince in the command of the fleet, which he was most willing to; but, when it come to the Prince, he was quite against it; saying, there could be no government, but that it would be better to have two fleets, and neither under the command of the other, which he would not agree to. So the King was not pleased; but, without any unkindness, did order the fleet to be ordered as above, as to the Admirals and commands: so the Prince is come up; and Sir G. Carteret, I remember, had this word thence, that, says he, by this means, though the King told him that it would be but for this expedition, yet I believe we shall keep him out for altogether. He tells me how my Lord was much troubled at Sir W. Pen's being ordered forth, as it seems he is to go to Solebay, and with the best fleet he can, to go forth, and no notice taken of my Lord Sandwich going after him, and having the command over him. By water to Woolwich,

1 Commanded the Royal Sovereign as Vice-Admiral of the Red, in 1672; and distinguished himself in the battle of Solebay, and on other occasions.

2 The son of a shoemaker, bred to the sea-service, and rose to the rank of an Admiral. He was killed in the fight with the Dutch, June, 1666.

where I found my wife come, and her two maids, and very prettily accommodated they will be; and I left them going to supper, grieved in my heart to part with my wife, being worse by much without her, though some trouble there is in having the care of a family at home this plague time.

6th. Alderman Backewell is ordered abroad upon some private score with a great sum of money; wherein I was instrumental the other day in shipping him away. It seems some of his creditors have taken notice of it, and he was like to be broke yesterday in his absence: Sir G. Carteret telling me that the King and the kingdom must as good as fall with that man at this time; and that he was forced to get £4,000 himself to answer Backewell's people's occasions, or he must have broke; but committed this to me as a great secret. I could not see Lord Brouncker, nor had much mind, one of the two great houses within two doors of him being shut up: and, Lord! the number of houses visited, which this day I observed through the town, quite round in my way, by Long Lane and London Wall. To Sir W. Batten, and spent the evening at supper; and, among other discourse, the rashness of Sir John Lawson, for breeding up his daughter so high and proud, refusing a man of great interest, Sir W. Barkeley, to match her with a melancholy fellow, Colonel Norton's son, of no interest nor good-nature nor generosity at all, giving her £6,000, when the other would have taken her with two-when he himself knew that he was not worth the money himself in all the world, he did give her that portion, and is since dead, and left his wife and two daughters beggars, and the other gone

away with £6,000, and no content in it, through the ill qualities of her father-in-law and husband, who, it seems, though a pretty woman, contracted for her as if he had been buying a horse; and, worst of all, is now of no use to serve the mother and two little sisters in any stead at Court, whereas, the other might have done what he would for her: so here is an end of this family's pride, which, with good care, might have been what they would, and done well. Sir W. Pen, it seems, sailed last night from Solebay, with about sixty sail of ships, and my Lord Sandwich in the Prince and some others, it seems, going after them to overtake them.

7th. At this time I have two tierces of Claret, two quarter casks of Canary, and a smaller vessel of Sack; a vessel of Tent, another of Malaga, and another of white wine, all in my wine-cellar together; which, I believe, none of my friends of my name now alive ever had of his own at one time.

9th. To Sir G. Carteret, and there find my Lady in her chamber, not very well, but looks the worst almost that ever I did see her in my life. It seems her drinking of the water at Tunbridge did almost kill her. Received with most extraordinary kindness by my Lady Carteret and her children, and dined most nobly. I took occasion to have much discourse with Mr. Ph. Carteret, and find him a very modest man; and I think verily of mighty good nature, and pretty understanding. He did give me a good account of the fight with the Dutch. Took boat and home, and there shifted myself into my black silk suit; and, having promised Harman yesterday, I to his house, which I find very mean, and mean company. His wife very ill: I could

not see her. Here I, with her father and Kate Joyce, who was also very ill, were godfathers and godmother to his boy, and was christened Will. Mr. Meriton1 christened him. The most observable thing I found there to my content, was to hear him and his clerk tell me, that in this parish of Michell's Cornhill, one of the middlemost parishes, and a great one of the town, there hath, notwithstanding this sickliness, been buried of any disease, man, woman, or child, not one for thirteen months last past; which is very strange. And the like, in a good degree, in most other parishes, I hear, saving only of the plague in them. Down to my Lady Carteret's. It is mighty pretty to think how my poor Lady Sandwich, between her and me, is doubtfull whether her daughter will like of the match or no, and how troubled she is for fear of it, which I do not fear at all, and desire her not to do it, but her fear is the most discreet and pretty that ever I did see.

10th. Having a coach of Mr. Povy's attending me, by appointment, in order to my coming to dine at his country-house, at Branford, where he and his family is, I went, and Mr. Tasbrough with me therein, it being a pretty chariot, but most inconvenient as to the horses throwing dust and dirt into one's eyes, and upon one's clothes. Creed rode before, and Mr. Povy and I after him in the chariot; and I was set down by him at the Parke pale, where one of his saddle-horses was ready for me, he himself not daring to come into the house or be seen, because that a servant of his, out of his house, happened to be sick, but is not yet dead, but was never suffered

1 Joseph Meriton, instituted to the rectory of St. Michael, Cornhill, 1663, of which he continued incumbent nearly forty years.

to come into his house after he was ill. But this opportunity was taken to injure Povy, and most horribly he is abused by some persons hereupon, and his fortune, I believe, quite broke; but that he hath a good heart to bear, or a cunning one to conceal his evil. It is, I perceive, an unpleasing thing to be at Court, everybody being fearful one of another, and all so sad enquiring after the plague, so that I stole away by my horse to Kingston, and there, with much trouble, was forced to press two sturdy rogues to carry me to London, and met at the water-side with Mr. Charnocke, Sir Philip Warwick's clerk, who had been with company, and was quite foxed. I took him with me in my boat, and so away to Richmond, and there, by night, walked with him to Mortlake, a very pretty walk, and there staid a good while.

11th. All night down by water, a most pleasant passage, and come thither by two o'clock, and so walked from the Old Swan home, and there to bed to my Will -he lodging at my desire in my house.

12th. After doing what business I could in the morning, it being a solemn fast-day for the plague growing upon us, I took boat, and down to Deptford, where I stood with great pleasure an hour or two by my Lady Sandwich's bedside, talking to her, she lying prettily in bed, of my Lady Jemimah's being from my Lady Pickering's when our letters come to that place; she being at my Lord Montagu's, at Boughton. The truth is, I had received letters of it two days ago, but had dropped them, and was in a very extraordinary strait what to do for them, or what account to give my Lady: but sent to Mortlake, where I had been the night be