Duke's lodgings, who is gone
thither to lodge lately. I appeared to the Duke, and thence Mr. Coventry
and I an hour in the Long Gallery, talking about the management of our
office, he tells me the weight of dispatch will lie chiefly on me, and
told me freely his mind touching Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes, the
latter of whom, he most aptly said, was like a lapwing; that all he did
was to keepe a flutter, to keepe others from the nest that they would
find. He told me an old story of the former about the light-houses, how
just before he had certified to the Duke against the use of them, and
what a burden they are to trade, and presently after, at his being at
Harwich, comes to desire that he might have the setting one up there,
and gets the usefulness of it certified also by the Trinity House. After
long discoursing and considering all our stores and other things, as how
the King hath resolved upon Captain Taylor

[Coventry, writing to Secretary Bennet (November 14th, 1664), refers
to the objections made to Taylor, and adds: "Thinks the King will
not easily consent to his rejection, as he is a man of great
abilities and dispatch, and was formerly laid aside at Chatham on
the Duchess of Albemarle's earnest interposition for another. He is
a fanatic, it is true, but all hands will be needed for the work cut
out; there is less danger of them in harbour than at sea, and profit
will convert most of them" ("Calendar of State Papers," Domestic,
1664-65, p. 68).]

and Colonell Middleton, the first to be Commissioner for Harwich and the
latter for Portsmouth, I away to the 'Change, and there did very
much business, so home to dinner, and Mr. Duke, our Secretary for the
Fishery, dined with me. After dinner to discourse of our business, much
to my content, and then he away, and I by water among the smiths on
the other side, and to the alehouse with one and was near buying 4 or 5
anchors, and learned something worth my knowing of them, and so home
and to my office, where late, with my head very full of business, and so
away home to supper and to bed.

5th. Up and to the office, where all the morning, at noon to the
'Change, and thence home to dinner, and so with my wife to the Duke's
house to a play, "Macbeth," a pretty good play, but admirably acted.
Thence home; the coach being forced to go round by London Wall home,
because of the bonefires; the day being mightily observed in the C