ere I found Sir J. Minnes pretty well
fuddled I thought: he took me aside to tell me how being at my Lord
Chancellor's to-day, my Lord told him that there was a Great Seal
passing for Sir W. Pen, through the impossibility of the Comptroller's
duty to be performed by one man; to be as it were joynt-comptroller with
him, at which he is stark mad; and swears he will give up his place,
and do rail at Sir W. Pen the cruellest; he I made shift to encourage
as much as I could, but it pleased me heartily to hear him rail against
him, so that I do see thoroughly that they are not like to be great
friends, for he cries out against him for his house and yard and God
knows what. For my part, I do hope, when all is done, that my following
my business will keep me secure against all their envys. But to see
how the old man do strut, and swear that he understands all his duty as
easily as crack a nut, and easier, he told my Lord Chancellor, for
his teeth are gone; and that he understands it as well as any man in
England; and that he will never leave to record that he should be said
to be unable to do his duty alone; though, God knows, he cannot do it
more than a child. All this I am glad to see fall out between them and
myself safe, and yet I hope the King's service well done for all
this, for I would not that should be hindered by any of our private
differences. So to my office, and then home to supper and to bed.

28th. Waked with great pain in my right ear (which I find myself much
subject to) having taken cold. Up and to my office, where we sat all
the morning, and I dined with Sir W. Batten by chance, being in business
together about a bargain of New England masts. Then to the Temple to
meet my uncle Thomas, who I found there, but my cozen Roger not
being come home I took boat and to Westminster, where I found him in
Parliament this afternoon. The House have this noon been with the
King to give him their reasons for refusing to grant any indulgence
to Presbyters or Papists; which he, with great content and seeming
pleasure, took, saying, that he doubted not but he and they should
agree in all things, though there may seem a difference in judgement,
he having writ and declared for an indulgence: and that he did believe
never prince was happier in a House of Commons, than he was in them.
Thence he and I to my Lord Sandwich, who continues troubled with his
cold. Our discourse most upon the outing of Sir R. Bernard, and my
Lord's bein