30th. The duke gave Penn
the command of the fleet immediately under himself. On Penn's
monument he is styled "Great Captain Commander under His Royal
Highness" (Penn's "Memorials of Sir William Penn," vol. ii.,
p. 296).]

can go away. So home to supper and to bed. This night Sir W. Batten did,
among other things, tell me strange newes, which troubles me, that my
Lord Sandwich will be sent Governor to Tangier, which, in some respects,
indeed, I should be glad of, for the good of the place and the safety
of his person; but I think his honour will suffer, and, it may be, his
interest fail by his distance.

4th. Waked very betimes and lay long awake, my mind being so full of
business. Then up and to St. James's, where I find Mr. Coventry full
of business, packing up for his going to sea with the Duke. Walked with
him, talking, to White Hall, where to the Duke's lodgings, who is gone
thither to lodge lately. I appeared to the Duke, and thence Mr. Coventry
and I an hour in the Long Gallery, talking about the management of our
office, he tells me the weight of dispatch will lie chiefly on me, and
told me freely his mind touching Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes, the
latter of whom, he most aptly said, was like a lapwing; that all he did
was to keepe a flutter, to keepe others from the nest that they would
find. He told me an old story of the former about the light-houses, how
just before he had certified to the Duke against the use of them, and
what a burden they are to trade, and presently after, at his being at
Harwich, comes to desire that he might have the setting one up there,
and gets the usefulness of it certified also by the Trinity House. After
long discoursing and considering all our stores and other things, as how
the King hath resolved upon Captain Taylor

[Coventry, writing to Secretary Bennet (November 14th, 1664), refers
to the objections made to Taylor, and adds: "Thinks the King will
not easily consent to his rejection, as he is a man of great
abilities and dispatch, and was formerly laid aside at Chatham on
the Duchess of Albemarle's earnest interposition for another. He is
a fanatic, it is true, but all hands will be needed for the work cut
out; there is less danger of them in harbour than at sea, and profit
will convert most of them" ("Calendar of State Papers," Domestic,
1664-65, p. 68).]

and Colonell Middleton, the first to be Commis