ould
have sunk her at any time. He did carry some 100 barrels of powder out of
the ship to save it after the orders come for the sinking her. He knew no
reason at all, he declares, that could lead them to order the sinking her,
nor the rest of the great ships that were sunk, but above all admires they
would burn them on shore and sink them there, when it had been better to
have sunk them long way in the middle of the River, for then they would
not have burned them so low as now they did.

10th. Up, and to the office betimes, and there all the morning very busy
causing papers to be entered and sorted to put the office in order against
the Parliament. At noon home to dinner, and then to the office again
close all the afternoon upon the same occasion with great pleasure till
late, and then with my wife and Mercer in the garden and sung, and then
home and sung, and to supper with great content, and so to bed. The Duke
of York is come back last night from Harwich, the news he brings I know
not, nor hear anything to-day from Dover, whether the enemy have made any
attempt there as was expected. This day our girle Mary, whom Payne helped
us to, to be under his daughter, when she come to be our cook-mayde, did
go away declaring that she must be where she might earn something one day,
and spend it and play away the next. But a good civil wench, and one
neither wife nor I did ever give angry word to, but she has this silly
vanity that she must play.

11th. Up betimes and to my office, and there busy till the office (which
was only Sir T. Harvy and myself) met, and did little business and then
broke up. He tells me that the Council last night did sit close to
determine of the King's answer about the peace, and that though he do not
certainly know, yet by all discourse yesterday he do believe it is peace,
and that the King had said it should be peace, and had bidden Alderman
Baclewell to declare [it] upon the 'Change. It is high time for us to
have peace that the King and Council may get up their credits and have
time to do it, for that indeed is the bottom of all our misery, that
nobody have any so good opinion of the King and his Council and their
advice as to lend money or venture their persons, or estates, or pains
upon people that they know cannot thrive with all that we can do, but
either by their corruption or negligence must be undone. This indeed is
the very bottom of every man's thought, and the certain ground t