of
York's, house, and there saw the Tempest again, which is very pleasant,
and full of so good variety that I cannot be more pleased almost in a
comedy, only the seamen's part a little too tedious. Thence home, and
there to my chamber, and do begin anew to bind myself to keep my old vows,
and among the rest not to see a play till Christmas but once in every
other week, and have laid aside L10, which is to be lost to the poor, if I
do. This I hope in God will bind me, for I do find myself mightily
wronged in my reputation, and indeed in my purse and business, by my late
following of my pleasure for so long time as I have done. So to supper
and then to bed. This day Mr. Chichly told me, with a seeming trouble,
that the House have stopped his son Jack (Sir John) his going to France,
that he may be a witness against my Lord Sandwich: which do trouble me,
though he can, I think, say little.

14th. At the office close all the morning. At noon, all my clerks with
me to dinner, to a venison pasty; and there comes Creed, and dined with
me, and he tells me how high the Lords were in the Lords' House about the
business of the Chancellor, and that they are not yet agreed to impeach
him. After dinner, he and I, and my wife and girl, the latter two to
their tailor's, and he and I to the Committee of the Treasury, where I had
a hearing, but can get but L6000 for the pay of the garrison, in lieu of
above L16,000; and this Alderman Backewell gets remitted there, and I am
glad of it. Thence by coach took up my wife and girl, and so home, and
set down Creed at Arundell House, going to the Royal Society, whither I
would be glad to go, but cannot. Thence home, and to the Office, where
about my letters, and so home to supper, and to bed, my eyes being bad
again; and by this means, the nights, now-a-days, do become very long to
me, longer than I can sleep out.

15th. Up, and to Alderman Backewell's

[Edward Backwell, goldsmith and alderman of the City of London. He
was a man of considerable wealth during the Commonwealth. After the
Restoration he negotiated Charles II.'s principal money
transactions. He was M.P. for Wendover in the parliament of 1679,
and in the Oxford parliament of 1680. According to the writer of
the life in the "Diet. of Nat. Biog. "his heirs did not ultimately
suffer any pecuniary loss by the closure of the Exchequer. Mr.
Hilton Price stated that Backwell removed