ss of hemp, wherein the
King is absolutely abused; but I was for peace sake contented to be
quiet and to sign to his bill, but in my manner so as to justify myself,
and so all was well; but to see what a knave Sir W. Batten is makes my
heart ake. So late at my office, and then home to supper and to bed, my
man Will not being well.

24th. Up before 4 o'clock, and so to my lute an hour or more, and then
by water, drinking my morning draft alone at an alehouse in Thames
Street, to the Temple, and thence after a little discourse with my cozen
Roger about some business, away by water to St. James's, and there an
hour's private discourse with Mr. Coventry, where he told me one thing
to my great joy, that in the business of Captain Cocke's hemp, disputed
before him the other day, Mr. Coventry absent, the Duke did himself tell
him since, that Mr. Pepys and he did stand up and carry it against the
rest that were there, Sir G. Carteret and Sir W. Batten, which do please
me much to see that the Duke do take notice of me. We did talk highly of
Sir W. Batten's corruption, which Mr. Coventry did very kindly say that
it might be only his heaviness and unaptness for business, that he do
things without advice and rashly, and to gratify people that do eat and
drink and play with him, and that now and then he observes that he
signs bills only in anger and fury to be rid of men. Speaking of Sir G.
Carteret, of whom I perceive he speaks but slightly, and diminishing of
him in his services for the King in Jersey; that he was well rewarded,
and had good lands and rents, and other profits from the King, all the
time he was there; and that it was always his humour to have things done
his way. He brought an example how he would not let the Castle there be
victualled for more than a month, that so he might keep it at his
beck, though the people of the town did offer to supply it more often
themselves, which, when one did propose to the King, Sir George Carteret
being by, says Sir George, "Let me know who they are that would do it, I
would with all my heart pay them." "Ah, by God," says the Commander that
spoke of it, "that is it that they are afeard of, that you would hug
them," meaning that he would not endure them. Another thing he told me,
how the Duke of York did give Sir G. Carteret and the Island his profits
as Admirall, and other things, toward the building of a pier there. But
it was never laid out, nor like to be. So it falling out that a