leete, and so aboard the Prince; and
there, after a good while in discourse, we did agree a bargain of
L5,000 with Sir Roger Cuttance for my Lord Sandwich for silk, cinnamon,
nutmeggs, and indigo. And I was near signing to an undertaking for the
payment of the whole sum; but I did by chance escape it; having since,
upon second thoughts, great cause to be glad of it, reflecting upon the
craft and not good condition, it may be, of Captain Cocke. I could get
no trifles for my wife. Anon to dinner and thence in great haste to
make a short visit to Sir W. Pen, where I found them and his lady and
daughter and many commanders at dinner. Among others Sir G. Askue, of
whom whatever the matter is, the world is silent altogether. But a very
pretty dinner there was, and after dinner Sir W. Pen made a bargain with
Cocke for ten bales of silke, at 16s. per lb., which, as Cocke says,
will be a good pennyworth, and so away to the Prince and presently comes
my Lord on board from Greenwich, with whom, after a little discourse
about his trusting of Cocke, we parted and to our yacht; but it being
calme, we to make haste, took our wherry toward Chatham; but, it growing
darke, we were put to great difficultys, our simple, yet confident
waterman, not knowing a step of the way; and we found ourselves to go
backward and forward, which, in the darke night and a wild place, did
vex us mightily. At last we got a fisher boy by chance, and took him
into the boat, and being an odde kind of boy, did vex us too; for he
would not answer us aloud when we spoke to him, but did carry us safe
thither, though with a mistake or two; but I wonder they were not more.
In our way I was [surprised] and so were we all, at the strange nature
of the sea-water in a darke night, that it seemed like fire upon every
stroke of the oare, and, they say, is a sign of winde. We went to the
Crowne Inne, at Rochester, and there to supper, and made ourselves merry
with our poor fisher-boy, who told us he had not been in a bed in the
whole seven years since he came to 'prentice, and hath two or three more
years to serve. After eating something, we in our clothes to bed.

26th. Up by five o'clock and got post horses and so set out for
Greenwich, calling and drinking at Dartford. Being come to Greenwich and
shifting myself I to the office, from whence by and by my Lord Bruncker
and Sir J. Minnes set out toward Erith to take charge of the two East
India shipps, which I had a hand in