im, having not been tried yet,
and so no mercy needful for him. However, the Duke of Buckingham and
others did desire that the Bill might be read; and it, was for banishing
my Lord Clarendon from all his Majesty's dominions, and that it should
be treason to have him found in any of them: the thing is only a thing
of vanity, and to insult over him, which is mighty poor I think, and so
do every body else, and ended in nothing, I think. By and by home with
Sir J. Minnes, who tells me that my Lord Clarendon did go away in
a Custom-house boat, and is now at Callis (Calais): and, I confess,
nothing seems to hang more heavy than his leaving of this unfortunate
paper behind him, that hath angered both Houses, and hath, I think,
reconciled them in that which otherwise would have broke them in pieces;
so that I do hence, and from Sir W. Coventry's late example and doctrine
to me, learn that on these sorts of occasions there is nothing like
silence; it being seldom any wrong to a man to say nothing, but, for
the most part, it is to say anything. This day, in coming home, Sir
J. Minnes told me a pretty story of Sir Lewes Dives, whom I saw this
morning speaking with him, that having escaped once out of prison
through a house of office, and another time in woman's apparel, and
leaping over a broad canal, a soldier swore, says he, this is a strange
jade.... He told me also a story of my Lord Cottington, who, wanting a
son, intended to make his nephew his heir, a country boy; but did
alter his mind upon the boy's being persuaded by another young heir,
in roguery, to crow like a cock at my Lord's table, much company being
there, and the boy having a great trick at doing that perfectly. My
Lord bade them take away that fool from the table, and so gave over the
thoughts of making him his heir, from this piece of folly. So home, and
there to dinner, and after dinner abroad with my wife and girle, set
them down at Unthanke's, and I to White Hall to the Council chamber,
where I was summoned about the business of paying of the seamen, where I
heard my Lord Anglesey put to it by Sir W. Coventry before the King for
altering the course set by the Council; which he like a wise man did
answer in few words, that he had already sent to alter it according to
the Council's method, and so stopped it, whereas many words would have
set the Commissioners of the Treasury on fire, who, I perceive, were
prepared for it. Here I heard Mr. Gawden speak to the Kin