the King's ships, Sir J. Minnes and I advising upon the business of
Slopps, wherein the seaman is so much abused by the Pursers, and
that being done, then I home to dinner, and so carried my wife to her
mother's, set her down and Ashwell to my Lord's lodging, there left
her, and I to the Duke, where we met of course, and talked of our Navy
matters. Then to the Commission of Tangier, and there, among other
things, had my Lord Peterborough's Commission read over; and Mr.
Secretary Bennet did make his querys upon it, in order to the drawing
one for my Lord Rutherford more regularly, that being a very extravagant
thing. Here long discoursing upon my Lord Rutherford's despatch, and so
broke up, and so going out of the Court I met with Mr. Coventry, and
so he and I walked half an hour in the long Stone Gallery, where we
discoursed of many things, among others how the Treasurer doth intend to
come to pay in course, which is the thing of the world that will do the
King the greatest service in the Navy, and which joys my heart to hear
of. He tells me of the business of Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Pen, which
I knew before, but took no notice or little that I did know it. But
he told me it was chiefly to make Mr. Pett's being joyned with Sir
W. Batten to go down the better, and do tell me how he well sees that
neither one nor the other can do their duties without help. But however
will let it fall at present without doing more in it to see whether they
will do their duties themselves, which he will see, and saith they
do not. We discoursed of many other things to my great content and so
parted, and I to my wife at my Lord's lodgings, where I heard Ashwell
play first upon the harpsicon, and I find she do play pretty well, which
pleaseth me very well. Thence home by coach, buying at the Temple the
printed virginal-book for her, and so home and to my office a while, and
so home and to supper and to bed.

17th. Up betimes and to my office a while, and then home and to Sir W.
Batten, with whom by coach to St. Margaret's Hill in Southwark, where
the judge of the Admiralty came, and the rest of the Doctors of the
Civill law, and some other Commissioners, whose Commission of Oyer
and Terminer was read, and then the charge, given by Dr. Exton, which
methought was somewhat dull, though he would seem to intend it to be
very rhetoricall, saying that justice had two wings, one of which spread
itself over the land, and the other over the water, wh