er
to even all my accounts of this month; and, bless God! I find myself,
notwithstanding great expences of late; viz. L80 now to pay for a
necklace; near L40 for a set of chairs and couch; near L40 for my three
pictures: yet I do gather, and am now worth L5200. My wife comes home
by and by, and hath pitched upon a necklace with three rows, which is a
very good one, and L80 is the price. In the evening, having finished
my accounts to my full content and joyed that I have evened them so
plainly, remembering the trouble my last accounts did give me by being
let alone a little longer than ordinary, by which I am to this day at
a loss for L50, I hope I shall never commit such an error again, for
I cannot devise where the L50 should be, but it is plain I ought to be
worth L50 more than I am, and blessed be God the error was no greater.
In the evening with my [wife] and Mercer by coach to take the ayre as
far as Bow, and eat and drank in the coach by the way and with much
pleasure and pleased with my company. At night home and up to the leads,
but were contrary to expectation driven down again with a stinke by
Sir W. Pen's shying of a shitten pot in their house of office close by,
which do trouble me for fear it do hereafter annoy me. So down to sing a
little and then to bed. So ends this month with great layings-out. Good
health and gettings, and advanced well in the whole of my estate, for
which God make me thankful.

MAY 1666

May 1st. Up, and all the morning at the office. At noon, my cozen Thomas
Pepys did come to me, to consult about the business of his being a
justice of the Peace, which he is much against; and among other reasons,
tells me, as a confidant, that he is not free to exercise punishment
according to the Act against Quakers and other people, for religion. Nor
do he understand Latin, and so is not capable of the place as formerly,
now all warrants do run in Latin. Nor is he in Kent, though he be of
Deptford parish, his house standing in Surry. However, I did bring him
to incline towards it, if he be pressed to take it. I do think it may be
some repute to me to have my kinsman in Commission there, specially if
he behave himself to content in the country. He gone and my wife gone
abroad, I out also to and fro, to see and be seen, among others to find
out in Thames Streete where Betty Howlett is come to live, being married
to Mrs. Michell's son; which I did about the Old Swan, but did not think
fit to go