The Diary

with Sir W. Coventry and some others of our board hiring of fireships, and Sir W. Coventry begins to see my pains again, which I do begin to take, and I am proud of it, and I hope shall continue it. He gone, at noon I home to dinner, and after dinner my father and wife out to the painter’s to sit again, and I, with my Lady Penn and her daughter, to see Harman; whom we find lame in bed. His bones of his anckle are broke, but he hopes to do well soon; and a fine person by his discourse he seems to be and my hearty [friend]; and he did plainly tell me that at the Council of War before the fight, it was against his reason to begin the fight then, and the reasons of most sober men there, the wind being such, and we to windward, that they could not use their lower tier of guns, which was a very sad thing for us to have the honour and weal of the nation ventured so foolishly. I left them there, and walked to Deptford, reading in Walsingham’s Manual, a very good book, and there met with Sir W. Batten and my Lady at Uthwayt’s. Here I did much business and yet had some little mirthe with my Lady, and anon we all come up together to our office, where I was very late doing much business. Late comes Sir J. Bankes to see me, and tells me that coming up from Rochester he overtook three or four hundred seamen, and he believes every day they come flocking from the fleet in like numbers; which is a sad neglect there, when it will be impossible to get others, and we have little reason to think that these will return presently again. He gone, I to end my letters tonight, and then home to supper and to bed.

12th. Up, and to the office, where we sat all the morning. At noon to dinner, and then to Whitehall in hopes of a meeting of Tangier about Yeabsly’s business, but it could not be obtained, Sir G. Carteret nor Sir W. Coventry being able to be there, which still vexes [me] to see the poor man forced still to attend, as also being desirous to see what my profit is, and get it. Walking here in the galleries I find the Ladies of Honour dressed in their riding garbs, with coats and doublets with deep skirts, just for all the world like mine, and buttoned their doublets up the breast, with perriwigs and with hats; so that, only for a long petticoat dragging under their men’s coats, nobody could take them for women in any point whatever; which was an odde sight, and a sight did not please me. It was Mrs. Wells and another fine lady that I saw thus. Thence down by water to Deptford, and there late seeing some things dispatched down to the fleet, and so home (thinking indeed to have met with Bagwell, but I did not) to write my letters very late, and so to supper and to bed.

13th. Up, and by coach to St. James’s, and there did our business before the Duke as usual, having, before the Duke come out of his bed, walked in an antechamber with Sir H. Cholmly,2859 who tells me there are great jarrs between the Duke of York and the Duke of Albemarle, about the later’s turning out one or two of the commanders put in by the Duke of York. Among others, Captain Du Tell,2860 a Frenchman, put in by the Duke of York, and mightily defended by him; and is therein led by Monsieur Blancford,2861 that it seems hath the same command over the Duke of York as Sir W. Coventry hath; which raises ill blood between them. And I do in several little things observe that Sir W. Coventry hath of late, by the by, reflected on the Duke of Albemarle and his captains, particularly in that of old Teddiman, who did deserve to be turned out this fight, and was so; but I heard Sir W. Coventry say that the Duke of Albemarle put in one as bad as he is in his room, and one that did as little. After we had done with the Duke of York, I with others to Whitehall, there to attend again a Committee of Tangier, but there was none, which vexed me to the heart, and makes me mighty doubtfull that when we have one, it will be prejudiced against poor Yeabsly and to my great disadvantage thereby, my Lord Peterborough making it his business, I perceive (whether in spite to me, whom he cannot but smell to be a friend to it, or to my Lord Ashly, I know not), to obstruct it, and seems to take delight in disappointing of us; but I shall be revenged of him. Here I stayed a very great while, almost till noon, and then meeting Balty I took him with me, and to Westminster to the Exchequer about breaking of two tallys of £2,000 each into smaller tallys, which I have been endeavouring a good while, but to my trouble it will not, I fear, be done, though there be no reason against it, but only a little trouble to the clerks; but it is nothing to me of real profit at all. Thence with Balty to Hales’s by coach, it being the seventh day from my making my late oathes, and by them I am at liberty to dispense with any of my oathes every seventh day after I had for the six days before going performed all my vowes. Here I find my father’s picture begun, and so much to my content, that it joys my very heart to think that