argument to prove,
that our importing lesse than we export, do not impoverish the kingdom,
according to the received opinion: which, though it be a paradox, and
that I do not remember the argument, yet methought there was a great
deale in what he said. And upon the whole I find him a most exact and
methodicall man, and of great industry: and very glad that he thought
fit to show me all this; though I cannot easily guess the reason why he
should do it to me, unless from the plainness that he sees I use to
him in telling him how much the King may suffer for our want of
understanding the case of our Treasury. Thence to White Hall (where
my Lord Sandwich was, and gave me a good countenance, I thought),
and before the Duke did our usual business, and so I about several
businesses in the house, and then out to the Mewes with Sir W. Pen. But
in my way first did meet with W. Howe, who did of himself advise me to
appear more free with my Lord and to come to him, for my own strangeness
he tells me he thinks do make my Lord the worse. At the Mewes Sir W. Pen
and Mr. Baxter did shew me several good horses, but Pen, which Sir W.
Pen did give the Duke of York, was given away by the Duke the other day
to a Frenchman, which Baxter is cruelly vexed at, saying that he was the
best horse that he expects a great while to have to do with. Thence I
to the 'Change, and thence to a Coffee-house with Sir W. Warren, and did
talk much about his and Wood's business, and thence homewards, and in my
way did stay to look upon a fire in an Inneyard in Lumbard Streete. But,
Lord! how the mercers and merchants who had warehouses there did carry
away their cloths and silks. But at last it was quenched, and I home to
dinner, and after dinner carried my wife and set her and her two mayds
in Fleete Streete to buy things, and I to White Hall to little purpose,
and so to Westminster Hall, and there talked with Mrs. Lane and Howlett,
but the match with Hawly I perceive will not take, and so I am resolved
wholly to avoid occasion of further ill with her. Thence by water to
Salsbury Court, and found my wife, by agreement, at Mrs. Turner's,
and after a little stay and chat set her and young Armiger down in
Cheapside, and so my wife and I home. Got home before our mayds, who by
and by came with a great cry and fright that they had like to have been
killed by a coach; but, Lord! to see how Jane did tell the story like a
foole and a dissembling fanatique, like her gr