man, a good seaman, and stout. Thence Pen and I to
Islington, and there, at the old house, eat, and drank, and merry, and
there by chance giving two pretty fat boys each of them a cake, they
proved to be Captain Holland's children, whom therefore I pity. So round
by Hackney home, having good discourse, he [Pen] being very open to me in
his talk, how the King ought to dissolve this Parliament, when the Bill of
Money is passed, they being never likely to give him more; how he [the
King] hath great opportunity of making himself popular by stopping this
Act against Conventicles; and how my Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if the
Parliament continue, will undoubtedly fall, he having managed that place
with so much self-seeking, and disorder, and pleasure, and some great men
are designing to overthrow [him], as, among the rest, my Lord Orrery; and
that this will try the King mightily, he being a firm friend to my Lord
Lieutenant. So home; and to supper a little, and then to bed, having
stepped, after I come home, to Alderman Backewell's about business, and
there talked a while with him and his wife, a fine woman of the country,
and how they had bought an estate at Buckeworth, within four mile of
Brampton.

4th. Up betimes, and by water to Charing Cross, and so to W. Coventry,
and there talked a little with him, and thence over the Park to White
Hall, and there did a little business at the Treasury, and so to the Duke,
and there present Balty to the Duke of York and a letter from the Board to
him about him, and the Duke of York is mightily pleased with him, and I
doubt not his continuance in employment, which I am glad of. Thence with
Sir H. Cholmly to Westminster Hall talking, and he crying mightily out of
the power the House of Lords usurps in this business of the East India
Company. Thence away home and there did business, and so to dinner, my
sister Michell and I, and thence to the Duke of York's house, and there
saw "The Impertinents" again, and with less pleasure than before, it being
but a very contemptible play, though there are many little witty
expressions in it; and the pit did generally say that of it. Thence, going
out, Mrs. Pierce called me from the gallery, and there I took her and Mrs.
Corbet by coach up and down, and took up Captain Rolt in the street; and
at last, it being too late to go to the Park, I carried them to the Beare
in Drury Lane, and there did treat them with a dish of mackrell, the first
I have