thing, wherein he hath done nothing but fair, and bought
dear.) So to the office, there to write my letters, and Cocke comes to
tell me that Fisher is come to him, and that he doubts not to cajole
Fisher and his companion and make them friends with drink and a bribe.
This night comes Sir Christopher Mings to towne, and I went to see him,
and by and by he being then out of the town comes to see me. He is newly
come from Court, and carries direction for the making a show of getting
out the fleete again to go fight the Dutch, but that it will end in a
fleete of 20 good sayling frigates to go to the Northward or Southward,
and that will be all. I enquired, but he would not be to know that he
had heard any thing at Oxford about the business of the prize goods,
which I did suspect, but he being gone, anon comes Cocke and tells me
that he hath been with him a great while, and that he finds him sullen
and speaking very high what disrespect he had received of my Lord,
saying that he hath walked 3 or 4 hours together at that Earle's cabbin
door for audience and could not be received, which, if true, I am sorry
for. He tells me that Sir G. Ascue says, that he did from the beginning
declare against these [prize] goods, and would not receive his dividend;
and that he and Sir W. Pen are at odds about it, and that he fears Mings
hath been doing ill offices to my Lord. I did to-night give my Lord an
account of all this, and so home and to bed.

11th. Up, and so in my chamber staid all the morning doing something
toward my Tangier accounts, for the stating of them, and also comes up
my landlady, Mrs. Clerke, to make an agreement for the time to come; and
I, for the having room enough, and to keepe out strangers, and to have
a place to retreat to for my wife, if the sicknesse should come
to Woolwich, am contented to pay dear; so for three rooms and a
dining-room, and for linen and bread and beer and butter, at nights and
mornings, I am to give her L5 10s. per month, and I wrote and we signed
to an agreement. By and by comes Cocke to tell me that Fisher and his
fellow were last night mightily satisfied and promised all friendship,
but this morning he finds them to have new tricks and shall be troubled
with them. So he being to go down to Erith with them this afternoon
about giving security, I advised him to let them go by land, and so he
and I (having eat something at his house) by water to Erith, but
they got thither before us, and there