g to
eat my dinner, I down by water to Deptford, and there coming find Sir
W. Batten and Sir Jeremy Smith (whom the dispatch of the Loyall London
detained) at dinner at Greenwich at the Beare Taverne, and thither I
to them and there dined with them. Very good company of strangers there
was, but I took no great pleasure among them, being desirous to be back
again. So got them to rise as soon as I could, having told them the
newes Sir W. Coventry just now wrote me to tell them, which is, that the
Dutch are certainly come out. I did much business at Deptford, and so
home, by an old poor man, a sculler, having no oares to be got, and all
this day on the water entertained myself with the play of Commenius,
and being come home did go out to Aldgate, there to be overtaken by Mrs.
Margot Pen in her father's coach, and my wife and Mercer with her, and
Mrs. Pen carried us to two gardens at Hackny, (which I every day grow
more and more in love with,) Mr. Drake's one, where the garden is good,
and house and the prospect admirable; the other my Lord Brooke's, where
the gardens are much better, but the house not so good, nor the prospect
good at all. But the gardens are excellent; and here I first saw oranges
grow: some green, some half, some a quarter, and some full ripe, on the
same tree, and one fruit of the same tree do come a year or two after
the other. I pulled off a little one by stealth (the man being mighty
curious of them) and eat it, and it was just as other little green small
oranges are; as big as half the end of my little finger. Here were also
great variety of other exotique plants, and several labarinths, and a
pretty aviary. Having done there with very great pleasure we away back
again, and called at the Taverne in Hackny by the church, and there
drank and eate, and so in the Goole of the evening home. This being the
first day of my putting on my black stuff bombazin suit, and I hope to
feel no inconvenience by it, the weather being extremely hot. So
home and to bed, and this night the first night of my lying without
a waistcoat, which I hope I shall very well endure. So to bed. This
morning I did with great pleasure hear Mr. Caesar play some good things
on his lute, while he come to teach my boy Tom, and I did give him 40s.
for his encouragement.

26th. Up and to my office betimes, and there all the morning, very busy
to get out the fleete, the Dutch being now for certain out, and we shall
not, we thinke, be much b