lobsters and some prawns, and pretty merry, especially to see
us four together, while my wife and my Lady did never intend ever to be
together again after a year's distance between one another. Hither by
and by come Sir Richard Ford and also Mrs. Esther, that lived formerly
with my Lady Batten, now well married to a priest, come to see my Lady.
Thence toward evening home, and to my office, where late, and then home
to supper and to bed.

3rd. Up betimes and walked to Sir Ph. Warwicke's, where a long time with
him in his chamber alone talking of Sir G. Carteret's business, and the
abuses he puts on the nation by his bad payments to both our vexations,
but no hope of remedy for ought I see. Thence to my Lord Ashly to a
Committee of Tangier for my Lord Rutherford's accounts, and that done we
to my Lord Treasurer's, where I did receive my Lord's warrant to Sir
R. Long for drawing a warrant for my striking of tallys. So to the Inne
again by Cripplegate, expecting my mother's coming to towne, but she is
not come this weeke neither, the coach being too full. So to the 'Change
and thence home to dinner, and so out to Gresham College, and saw a cat
killed with the Duke of Florence's poyson, and saw it proved that the
oyle of tobacco

["Mr. Daniel Coxe read an account of the effects of tobacco-oil
distilled in a retort, by one drop of which given at the mouth he
had killed a lusty cat, which being opened, smelled strongly of the
oil, and the blood of the heart more strongly than the rest....
One drop of the Florentine 'oglio di tobacco' being again given to a
dog, it proved stupefying and vomitive, as before" (Birch's "History
of the Royal Society," vol, ii., pp. 42, 43).]

drawn by one of the Society do the same effect, and is judged to be the
same thing with the poyson both in colour and smell, and effect. I
saw also an abortive child preserved fresh in spirits of salt. Thence
parted, and to White Hall to the Councilchamber about an order touching
the Navy (our being empowered to commit seamen or Masters that do not,
being hired or pressed, follow their worke), but they could give us
none. So a little vexed at that, because I put in the memorial to the
Duke of Albemarle alone under my own hand, home, and after some time at
the office home to bed. My Lord Chief Justice Hide did die suddenly this
week, a day or two ago, of an apoplexy.

4th. Up, and to the office, where we sat busy all the m