their view to
dispose of, will leave any of the King's officers in, but will rout all,
though I am likely to escape as well as any, if any can escape; and I
think he is in the right, and I do look for it accordingly. Then we fell
to discourse of my little vessel, "The Maybolt," and he thinks that it
will be best for me to employ her for a voyage to Newcastle for coles,
they being now dear, and the voyage not long, nor dangerous yet; and I
think I shall go near to do so. Then, talking of his business, I away to
the office, where very busy, and thither comes Sir W. Pen, and he and I
walked together in the garden, and there told me what passed to-day with
him in the Committee, by my Lord Sandwich's breaking bulk of the prizes;
and he do seem to me that he hath left it pretty well understood by them,
he saying that what my Lord did was done at the desire, and with the
advice, of the chief officers of the fleete, and that it was no more than
admirals heretofore have done in like cases, which, if it be true that he
said it, is very well, and did please me well. He being gone, I to my
office again and there late, and so weary home.

12th. Rose before day, and took coach, by daylight, and to Westminster to
Sir G. Downing's, and there met Sir Stephen Fox, and thence he and I to
Sir Robert Longs to discourse the business of our orders for money, he for
the guards, and I for Tangier, and were a little angry in our concerns,
one against the other, but yet parted good friends, and I think I got
ground by it. Thence straight to the office, and there sat all the
morning, and then home to dinner, and after dinner I all alone to the Duke
of York's house, and saw "The Tempest," which, as often as I have seen it,
I do like very well, and the house very full. But I could take little
pleasure more than the play, for not being able to look about, for fear of
being seen. Here only I saw a French lady in the pit, with a tunique,
just like one of ours, only a handkercher about her neck; but this fashion
for a woman did not look decent. Thence walked to my bookseller's, and
there he did give me a list of the twenty who were nominated for the
Commission in Parliament for the Accounts: and it is strange that of the
twenty the Parliament could not think fit to choose their nine, but were
fain to add three that were not in the list of the twenty, they being many
of them factious people and ringleaders in the late troubles; so that Sir
John Ta