ss; without doing any thing, but what hurt of course our guns
must have done them: we having lost five commanders, besides Mr. Edward
Montagu, and Mr. Windham.

[This Mr. Windham had entered into a formal engagement with the Earl
of Rochester, "not without ceremonies of religion, that if either of
them died, he should appear, and give the other notice of the future
state, if there was any." He was probably one of the brothers of
Sir William Wyndham, Bart. See Wordsworth's "Ecclesiastical
Biography," fourth. edition, vol. iv., p. 615.--B.]

Our fleete is come home to our great grief with not above five weeks'
dry, and six days' wet provisions: however, must out again; and the Duke
hath ordered the Soveraigne, and all other ships ready, to go out to
the fleete to strengthen them. This news troubles us all, but cannot
be helped. Having read all this news, and received commands of the Duke
with great content, he giving me the words which to my great joy he hath
several times said to me, that his greatest reliance is upon me. And my
Lord Craven also did come out to talk with me, and told me that I am
in mighty esteem with the Duke, for which I bless God. Home, and having
given my fellow-officers an account hereof, to Chatham, and wrote other
letters, I by water to Charing-Cross, to the post-house, and there the
people tell me they are shut up; and so I went to the new post-house,
and there got a guide and horses to Hounslow, where I was mightily taken
with a little girle, the daughter of the master of the house (Betty
Gysby), which, if she lives, will make a great beauty. Here I met with
a fine fellow who, while I staid for my horses, did enquire newes, but
I could not make him remember Bergen in Norway, in 6 or 7 times telling,
so ignorant he was. So to Stanes, and there by this time it was dark
night, and got a guide who lost his way in the forest, till by help
of the moone (which recompenses me for all the pains I ever took about
studying of her motions,) I led my guide into the way back again; and so
we made a man rise that kept a gate, and so he carried us to Cranborne.
Where in the dark I perceive an old house new building with a great deal
of rubbish, and was fain to go up a ladder to Sir G. Carteret's chamber.
And there in his bed I sat down, and told him all my bad newes, which
troubled him mightily; but yet we were very merry, and made the best of
it; and being myself weary did take