The Diary
Chapter List

Chapter_2509

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29th. Up betimes, and there to fit some Tangier accounts, and then, by appointment, to my Lord Bellasses, but about Paul’s thought of the chant paper I should carry with me, and so fain to come back again, and did, and then met with Sir W. Penn, and with him to my Lord Bellasses, he sitting in the coach the while, while I up to my Lord and there offered him my account of the bills of exchange I had received and paid for him, wherein we agree all but one £200 bill of Vernatty’s drawing, wherein I doubt he hath endeavoured to cheate my Lord; but that will soon appear. Thence took leave, and found Sir W. Penn talking to Orange Moll, of the King’s house, who, to our great comfort, told us that they begun to act on the 18th of this month. So on to St. James’s, in the way Sir W. Penn telling me that Mr. Norton, that married Sir J. Lawson’s daughter, is dead. She left £800 a year jointure, a son to inherit the whole estate. She freed from her father-in-law’s tyranny, and is in condition to help her mother, who needs it; of which I am glad, the young lady being very pretty. To St. James’s, and there Sir W. Coventry took Sir W. Penn and me apart, and read to us his answer to the Generals’ letter to the King that he read last night; wherein he is very plain, and states the matter in full defence of himself and of me with him, which he could not avoid; which is a good comfort to me, that I happen to be involved with him in the same cause. And then, speaking of the supplies which have been made to this fleet, more than ever in all kinds to any, even that wherein the Duke of York himself was, “Well,” says he, “if this will not do, I will say, as Sir J. Falstaffe did to the Prince, ‘Tell your father, that if he do not like this let him kill the next Piercy himself,’ ” and so we broke up, and to the Duke, and there did our usual business. So I to the Park and there met Creed, and he and I walked to Westminster to the Exchequer, and thence to Whitehall talking of Tangier matters and Vernatty’s knavery, and so parted, and then I homeward and met Mr. Povy in Cheapside, and stopped and talked a good while upon the profits of the place which my Lord Bellasses hath made this last year, and what share we are to have of it, but of this all imperfect, and so parted, and I home, and there find Mrs. Mary Batelier, and she dined with us; and thence I took them to Islington, and there eat a custard; and so back to Moorfields, and showed Batelier, with my wife, Polichinello, which I like the more I see it; and so home with great content, she being a mighty good-natured, pretty woman, and thence I to the Victualling office, and there with Mr. Lewes and Willson upon our Victualling matters till ten at night, and so I home and there late writing a letter to Sir W. Coventry, and so home to supper and to bed. No news where the Dutch are. We begin to think they will steale through the Channel to meet Beaufort. We think our fleet sailed yesterday, but we have no news of it.