upon my accounts,
publique and private, and find the ill effect of letting them go so
long without evening, that no soul could have ever understood them but
myself, and I with much ado. But, however, my regularity in all I did
and spent do helpe me, and I hope to find them well. Late at them and to
bed.

30th. Up and to the office, at noon home to dinner, and all the
afternoon to my accounts again, and there find myself, to my great joy,
a great deal worth above L4000, for which the Lord be praised! and is
principally occasioned by my getting L500 of Cocke, for my profit in his
bargains of prize goods, and from Mr. Gawden's making me a present of
L500 more, when I paid him 8000 for Tangier. So to my office to write
letters, then to my accounts again, and so to bed, being in great ease
of mind.

31st (Lord's day). All the morning in my chamber, writing fair the state
of my Tangier accounts, and so dined at home. In the afternoon to the
Duke of Albemarle and thence back again by water, and so to my chamber
to finish the entry of my accounts and to think of the business I am
next to do, which is the stating my thoughts and putting in order my
collections about the business of pursers, to see where the fault of our
present constitution relating to them lies and what to propose to mend
it, and upon this late and with my head full of this business to bed.
Thus ends this year, to my great joy, in this manner. I have raised
my estate from L1300 in this year to L4400. I have got myself greater
interest, I think, by my diligence, and my employments encreased by that
of Treasurer for Tangier, and Surveyour of the Victualls. It is true we
have gone through great melancholy because of the great plague, and I
put to great charges by it, by keeping my family long at Woolwich,
and myself and another part of my family, my clerks, at my charge at
Greenwich, and a mayde at London; but I hope the King will give us some
satisfaction for that. But now the plague is abated almost to nothing,
and I intending to get to London as fast as I can. My family, that is
my wife and maids, having been there these two or three weeks. The Dutch
war goes on very ill, by reason of lack of money; having none to
hope for, all being put into disorder by a new Act that is made as an
experiment to bring credit to the Exchequer, for goods and money to
be advanced upon the credit of that Act. I have never lived so merrily
(besides that I never got so much) as I