seem to take in their wine and meate, and
discourse of it with the curiosity and joy that methinks was below men
of worthe. Thence home, and there very much angry with my people till
I had put all things in good forwardnesse about my supper for the
Houblons, but that being done I was in good humour again, and all things
in good order. Anon the five brothers Houblons come and Mr. Hill, and
a very good supper we had, and good company and discourse, with great
pleasure. My new plate sets off my cupboard very nobly. Here they were
till about eleven at night with great pleasure, and a fine sight it
is to see these five brothers thus loving one to another, and all
industrious merchants. Our subject was principally Mr. Hill's going for
them to Portugall, which was the occasion of this entertainment. They
gone, we to bed.

10th. Up, and to the office. At noon, full of business, to dinner. This
day comes first Sir Thomas Harvy after the plague, having been out of
towne all this while. He was coldly received by us, and he went away
before we rose also, to make himself appear yet a man less necessary.
After dinner, being full of care and multitude of business, I took coach
and my wife with me. I set her down at her mother's (having first called
at my Lord Treasurer's and there spoke with Sir Ph. Warwicke), and I to
the Exchequer about Tangier orders, and so to the Swan and there staid a
little, and so by coach took up my wife, and at the old Exchange bought
a muffe, and so home and late at my letters, and so to supper and to
bed, being now-a-days, for these four or five months, mightily troubled
with my snoring in my sleep, and know not how to remedy it.

11th (Lord's day). Up, and put on a new black cloth suit to an old coate
that I make to be in mourning at Court, where they are all, for the King
of Spayne.--[Philip IV., who died September 17th, 1665.]--To church
I, and at noon dined well, and then by water to White Hall, carrying a
captain of the Tower (who desired his freight thither); there I to the
Parke, and walked two or three turns of the Pell Mell with the company
about the King and Duke; the Duke speaking to me a good deal. There met
Lord Bruncker and Mr. Coventry, and discoursed about the Navy business;
and all of us much at a loss that we yet can hear nothing of Sir Jeremy
Smith's fleete, that went away to the Streights the middle of December,
through all the storms that we have had since, that have driven back
thre