And first I bless God I do,
after a large expense, even this month, by reason of Christmas, and some
payments to my father, and other things extraordinary, find that I
am worth in money, besides all my household stuff, or any thing of
Brampton, above L800, whereof in my Lord Sandwich's hand, L700, and the
rest in my hand. So that there is not above L5 of all my estate in money
at this minute out of my hands and my Lord's. For which the good God be
pleased to give me a thankful heart and a mind careful to preserve this
and increase it. I do live at my lodgings in the Navy Office, my family
being, besides my wife and I, Jane Gentleman, Besse, our excellent,
good-natured cookmayde, and Susan, a little girle, having neither man
nor boy, nor like to have again a good while, living now in most perfect
content and quiett, and very frugally also; my health pretty good,
but only that I have been much troubled with a costiveness which I am
labouring to get away, and have hopes of doing it. At the office I am
well, though envied to the devil by Sir William Batten, who hates me to
death, but cannot hurt me. The rest either love me, or at least do not
show otherwise, though I know Sir W. Pen to be a false knave touching
me, though he seems fair. My father and mother well in the country; and
at this time the young ladies of Hinchingbroke with them, their house
having the small-pox in it. The Queene after a long and sore sicknesse
is become well again; and the King minds his mistresse a little too
much, if it pleased God! but I hope all things will go well, and in the
Navy particularly, wherein I shall do my duty whatever comes of it. The
great talke is the designs of the King of France, whether against the
Pope or King of Spayne nobody knows; but a great and a most promising
Prince he is, and all the Princes of Europe have their eye upon him. My
wife's brother come to great unhappiness by the ill-disposition, my wife
says, of his wife, and her poverty, which she now professes, after all
her husband's pretence of a great fortune, but I see none of them, at
least they come not to trouble me. At present I am concerned for my
cozen Angier, of Cambridge, lately broke in his trade, and this day am
sending his son John, a very rogue, to sea. My brother Tom I know not
what to think of, for I cannot hear whether he minds his business or
not; and my brother John at Cambridge, with as little hopes of
doing good there, for when he was here he did