well pleased with
her returning it him. It is generally believed that France is
endeavouring a firmer league with us than the former, in order to his
going on with his business against Spayne the next year; which I am, and
so everybody else is, I think, very glad of, for all our fear is, of his
invading us. This day, at White Hall, I overheard Sir W. Coventry propose
to the King his ordering of some particular thing in the Wardrobe, which
was of no great value; but yet, as much as it was, it was of profit to the
King and saving to his purse. The King answered to it with great
indifferency, as a thing that it was no great matter whether it was done
or no. Sir W. Coventry answered: "I see your Majesty do not remember the
old English proverb, 'He that will not stoop for a pin, will never be
worth a pound.'" And so they parted, the King bidding him do as he would;
which, methought, was an answer not like a King that did intend ever to do
well.

3rd. At the office all the morning with Mr. Willson and my clerks,
consulting again about a new contract with the Victualler of the Navy, and
at noon home to dinner, and then to the office again, where busy all the
afternoon preparing something for the Council about Tangier this evening.
So about five o'clock away with it to the Council, and there do find that
the Council hath altered its times of sitting to the mornings, and so I
lost my labour, and back again by coach presently round by the city wall,
it being dark, and so home, and there to the office, where till midnight
with Mr. Willson and my people to go through with the Victualler's
contract and the considerations about the new one, and so home to supper
and to bed, thinking my time very well spent.

4th. Up, and there to the office, where we sat all the morning; at noon
home to dinner, where my clerks and Mr. Clerke the sollicitor with me, and
dinner being done I to the office again, where all the afternoon till late
busy, and then home with my mind pleased at the pleasure of despatching my
business, and so to supper and to bed, my thoughts full, how to order our
design of having some dancing at our house on Monday next, being
Twelfth-day. It seems worth remembering that this day I did hear my Lord
Anglesey at the table, speaking touching this new Act for Accounts, say
that the House of Lords did pass it because it was a senseless,
impracticable, ineffectual, and foolish Act; and that my Lord Ashly having
shown this