r a miracle of
cunning and forecast in his business, and then Captain Cocke, with whom I
walked in the garden, and he tells me how angry the Court is at the late
Proviso brought in by the House. How still my Lord Chancellor is, not
daring to do or say any thing to displease the Parliament; that the
Parliament is in a very ill humour, and grows every day more and more so;
and that the unskilfulness of the Court, and their difference among one
another, is the occasion of all not agreeing in what they would have, and
so they give leisure and occasion to the other part to run away with what
the Court would not have. Then comes Mr. Gawden, and he and I in my
chamber discoursing about his business, and to pay him some Tangier orders
which he delayed to receive till I had money instead of tallies, but do
promise me consideration for my victualling business for this year, and
also as Treasurer for Tangier, which I am glad of, but would have been
gladder to have just now received it. He gone, I alone to dinner at home,
my wife and her people being gone down the river to-day for pleasure,
though a cold day and dark night to come up. In the afternoon I to the
Excise Office to enter my tallies, which I did, and come presently back
again, and then to the office and did much business, and then home to
supper, my wife and people being come well and hungry home from Erith.
Then I to begin the setting of a Base to "It is Decreed," and so to bed.

11th. Up, and to the office, where we sat, and at noon home to dinner, a
small dinner because of a good supper. After dinner my wife and I by
coach to St. Clement's Church, to Mrs. Turner's lodgings, hard by, to take
our leaves of her. She is returning into the North to her children,
where, I perceive, her husband hath clearly got the mastery of her, and
she is likely to spend her days there, which for her sake I am a little
sorry for, though for his it is but fit she should live where he hath a
mind. Here were several people come to see and take leave of her, she
going to-morrow: among others, my Lady Mordant, which was Betty Turner, a
most homely widow, but young, and pretty rich, and good natured. Thence,
having promised to write every month to her, we home, and I to my office,
while my wife to get things together for supper. Dispatching my business
at the office. Anon come our guests, old Mr. Batelier, and his son and
daughter, Mercer, which was all our company. We had a good veni