after I had enquired for my wife or her boat, but found none. Going out
of the gate, an ordinary woman prayed me to give her room to London,
which I did, but spoke not to her all the way, but read, as long as I
could see, my book again. Dark when we came to London, and a stop of
coaches in Southwarke. I staid above half an houre and then 'light, and
finding Sir W. Batten's coach, heard they were gone into the Beare at
the Bridge foot, and thither I to them. Presently the stop is removed,
and then going out to find my coach, I could not find it, for it was
gone with the rest; so I fair to go through the darke and dirt over
the bridge, and my leg fell in a hole broke on the bridge, but, the
constable standing there to keep people from it, I was catched up,
otherwise I had broke my leg; for which mercy the Lord be praised! So at
Fanchurch I found my coach staying for me, and so home, where the little
girle hath looked to the house well, but no wife come home, which made
me begin to fear [for] her, the water being very rough, and cold and
darke. But by and by she and her company come in all well, at which I
was glad, though angry. Thence I to Sir W. Batten's, and there sat late
with him, Sir R. Ford, and Sir John Robinson; the last of whom continues
still the same foole he was, crying up what power he has in the City,
in knowing their temper, and being able to do what he will with them. It
seems the City did last night very freely lend the King L100,000
without any security but the King's word, which was very noble. But this
loggerhead and Sir R. Ford would make us believe that they did it. Now
Sir R. Ford is a cunning man, and makes a foole of the other, and the
other believes whatever the other tells him. But, Lord! to think that
such a man should be Lieutenant of the Tower, and so great a man as he
is, is a strange thing to me. With them late and then home and with my
wife to bed, after supper.

27th. Up and to the office, where all the morning busy. At noon, Sir
G. Carteret, Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten, Sir W. Pen, and myself, were
treated at the Dolphin by Mr. Foly, the ironmonger, where a good plain
dinner, but I expected musique, the missing of which spoiled my dinner,
only very good merry discourse at dinner. Thence with Sir G. Carteret
by coach to White Hall to a Committee of Tangier, and thence back to
London, and 'light in Cheapside and I to Nellson's, and there met with
a rub at first, but took him out to drin