he and his kinswoman sang, but
I was not pleased with it, they singing methought very ill, or else I
am grown worse to please than heretofore. Thence to the Hall again, and
after meeting with several persons, and talking there, I to Mrs. Hunt's
(where I knew my wife and my aunt Wight were about business), and they
being gone to walk in the parke I went after them with Mrs. Hunt, who
staid at home for me, and finding them did by coach, which I had agreed
to wait for me, go with them all and Mrs. Hunt and a kinswoman of
theirs, Mrs. Steward, to Hide Parke, where I have not been since last
year; where I saw the King with his periwigg, but not altered at all;
and my Lady Castlemayne in a coach by herself, in yellow satin and a
pinner on; and many brave persons. And myself being in a hackney and
full of people, was ashamed to be seen by the world, many of them
knowing me. Thence in the evening home, setting my aunt at home, and
thence we sent for a joynt of meat to supper, and thence to the office
at 11 o'clock at night, and so home to bed.

19th. Up and to St. James's, where long with Mr. Coventry, Povy, &c., in
their Tangier accounts, but such the folly of that coxcomb Povy that we
could do little in it, and so parted for the time, and I to walk with
Creed and Vernaty in the Physique Garden in St. James's Parke; where I
first saw orange-trees, and other fine trees. So to Westminster Hall,
and thence by water to the Temple, and so walked to the 'Change, and
there find the 'Change full of news from Guinny, some say the Dutch have
sunk our ships and taken our fort, and others say we have done the same
to them. But I find by our merchants that something is done, but is yet
a secret among them. So home to dinner, and then to the office, and
at night with Captain Tayler consulting how to get a little money by
letting him the Elias to fetch masts from New England. So home to supper
and to bed.

20th. Up and by coach to Westminster, and there solicited W. Joyce's
business all the morning, and meeting in the Hall with Mr. Coventry, he
told me how the Committee for Trade have received now all the complaints
of the merchants against the Dutch, and were resolved to report very
highly the wrongs they have done us (when, God knows! it is only our
owne negligence and laziness that hath done us the wrong) and this to be
made to the House to-morrow. I went also out of the Hall with Mrs. Lane
to the Swan at Mrs. Herbert's in the Palace Yar