mirth, too, to see himself out-done, was the crown of all our mirth. In this humour we sat till about ten at night, and so my Lord and his mistress home, and we to bed.

11th. Over to the ferry, where Sir W. Batten's coach was ready for us, and to Walthamstow drove merrily, and there a good plain venison dinner. After dinner, to billiards, where I won an angel. Sir W. Hickes1 was there, and my Lady Batten invited herself to dine with him this week, and she invited us all to dine with her there, which we agreed to, only to vex him, he being the most niggardly fellow, it seems, in the world. So to Greenwich, where my Lord Rutherford and Creed come from Court, and have brought me several orders for money to pay for Tangier; and, among the rest, £7,000, and more, to this Lord, which is an excellent thing to consider, that, though they can do nothing else, they can give away the King's money upon their progresse. I did give him the best answer I could to pay him with tallys, and that is all they could get from me.

13th. My Lord Brouncker, Sir J. Minnes, and I, took boat, and in my Lord's coach to Sir W. Hickes's, whither, by and by, my Lady Batten and Sir William comes. It is a good seat, with a fair grove of trees by it, and the remains of a good garden; but so let to run to ruine, both house and every thing in and about it, so ill furnished and miserably looked after, I never did see

1 Sir William Hickes, created a Baronet 1619: ob. 1680, aged 84. His country-seat was called Ruckholts, or Rookwood, at Layton, in Essex, where he entertained King Charles II. after hunting.

in all my life. Not so much as a latch to his diningroom door; which saved him nothing, for the wind, blowing into the room for want thereof, flung down a great bow-pott that stood upon the side-table, and that fell upon some Venice glasses, and did him a crown's worth of hurt. He did give us the meanest dinner, of beef, shoulder and umbles of venison, which he takes away from the keeper of the Forest,1 and a few pigeons, and all in the meanest manner, that ever I did see, to the basest degree. I was only pleased at a very fine picture of the Queene-Mother, when she was young, by Vandike; a very good picture, and a lovely face.

14th. To London, where I have not been now a pretty while. To the Duke of Albemarle, where I find a letter of the 12th, from Solebay, from my Lord Sandwich, of the fleet's meeting with about eighteen more of the Dutch fleet, and his taking of most of them; and the messenger says, they had taken three after the letter was wrote and sealed; which being twenty-one, and the fourteen took the other day, is forty-five sail; some of which are good, and others rich ships. And, having taken a copy of my Lord's letter, I away toward the 'Change, the plague being all thereabouts. Here my news was highly welcome, and I did wonder to see the 'Change so full, I believe 200 people; but not a man or merchant of any fashion, but plain men all. And, Lord! to see how I did endeavour all I could to talk with as few as I could, there being now no observation of shutting up of houses infected, that to be sure we do converse and meet with people that have the plague upon them. I spent some thoughts upon the

1 Epping Forest, of which he was Ranger.

occurrences of this day, giving matter for as much content on one hand, and melancholy on another, as any day in all my life. For the first; the finding of my money and plate, and all safe at London, and speeding in my business this day. The hearing of this good news to such excess, after so great a despair of my Lord's doing any thing this year; adding to that, the decrease of 500 and more, which is the first decrease we have yet had in the sickness since it begun; and great hopes that the next week it will be greater, Then, on the other side, my finding that though the Bill in general is abated, yet the City, within the walls, is encreased, and likely to continue so, and is close to our house there. My meeting dead corpses of the plague, carried to be buried close to me at noonday through the City in Fenchurch Street. To see a person sick of the sores, carried close by me by Gracechurch in a hackney-coach. My finding the Angel tavern, at the lower end of Tower Hill, shut up; and more than that, the alehouse at the Tower Stairs; and more than that, that the person was then dying of the plague when I was last there, a little while ago, at night. To hear that poor Payne, my waiter, hath buried a child, and is dying himself. To hear that a labourer I sent but the other day to Dagenhams, to know how they did there, is dead of the plague; and that one of my own watermen, that carried me daily, fell sick as soon as he had landed me on Friday morning last, when I had been all night upon the water, and I believe he did get his infection that day at Branford, and is now dead of the plague. To hear that Captain Lambert and Cuttle are killed in the taking

these ships; and that Mr. Sidney Montagu is sick of a desperate fever at my Lady Carteret's, at Scott's Hall. To hear that Mr. Lewes hath another daughter sick. And, lastly, that both my servants, W. Hewer, and Tom Edwards, have lost their fathers, both in St. Sepulchre's parish, of the plague this week, do put me into great apprehensions of melancholy, and with good reason. But I put off my thoughts of sadness as much as I can, and the rather to keep my wife in good heart, and family also.

15th. With Captain Cocke, and there drank a cup of good drink, which I am fain to allow myself during this plague time, by advice of all, and not contrary to my oath, my physician being dead, and chyrurgeon out of the way, whose advice I am obliged to take. In much pain to think what I shall do this winter time; for going every day to Woolwich I cannot, without endangering my life; and staying from my wife at Greenwich is not handsome.

16th. To the office, where I find Sir J. Minnes gone to the Fleet, like a doating fool, to do no good, but proclaim himself an asse; for no service he can do here, nor inform my Lord, who is come in thither to the buoy of the Nore, in anything worth his knowledge. The likelihood of the increase of the plague this week makes us a little sad. To Captain Cocke's, meaning to lie there, it being late, and he not being at home, I walked to him to my Lord Brouncker's, and there staid a while, they being at Tables;1 and so by and by parted, and walked to his house; and, after a mess of good

1 Tables, better known, at present, by the name of backgam

mon.

broth, to bed, in great pleasure, his company being most excellent.

17th. To Church, where a company of fine people, and a fine church, and very good sermon, Mr. Plume' being a very excellent scholler and preacher. To Gravesend in the Bezan Yacht, and there come to anchor for all night, and supped and talked, and with much pleasure at last settled ourselves to sleep, having very good lodgings upon cushions in the cabbin.

18th. By break of day we come to within sight of the fleet, which was a very fine thing to behold, being above 100 ships, great and small; with the flag-ships of each squadron, distinguished by their several flags on their main, fore, or mizen masts. Among others, the Soveraigne, Charles, and Prince; in the last of which my Lord Sandwich was. And so we come on board, and we find my Lord Sandwich newly up in his nightgown very well. He received us kindly; telling us the state of the fleet, lacking provisions, having no beer at all, nor have had, most of them, these three weeks or month, and but few days' dry provisions. And indeed he tells us that he believes no fleet was ever set to sea in so ill condition of provision, as this was when it went out last. He did inform us, in the business of Bergen, so as to let us see how the judgment of the world is not to be depended on in things they know not; it being a place just wide enough, and not so much hardly, for ships to go through to it, the yard-armes sticking in the very rocks. He do not, upon his best enquiry, find reason to except against any part of the management of

1 Thomas Plume, D.D., Vicar of Greenwich, 1662, and installed Archdeacon of Rochester, 1679. Ob. 1704.