, who is come to towne two days since from Hinchingbroke,
and brought his sister and brother Carteret with him, who are at Sir G.
Carteret's. After dinner I and Sir Thomas Crew went aside to discourse
of public matters, and do find by him that all the country gentlemen are
publickly jealous of the courtiers in the Parliament, and that they do
doubt every thing that they propose; and that the true reason why the
country gentlemen are for a land-tax and against a general excise, is,
because they are fearful that if the latter be granted they shall never
get it down again; whereas the land-tax will be but for so much; and
when the war ceases, there will be no ground got by the Court to keep
it up. He do much cry out upon our accounts, and that all that they have
had from the King hath been but estimates both from my Lord Treasurer
and us, and from all people else, so that the Parliament is weary of
it. He says the House would be very glad to get something against Sir
G. Carteret, and will not let their inquiries die till they have got
something. He do, from what he hath heard at the Committee for examining
the burning of the City, conclude it as a thing certain that it was done
by plots; it being proved by many witnesses that endeavours were made in
several places to encrease the fire, and that both in City and country
it was bragged by several Papists that upon such a day or in such a time
we should find the hottest weather that ever was in England, and words
of plainer sense. But my Lord Crew was discoursing at table how the
judges have determined in the case whether the landlords or the tenants
(who are, in their leases, all of them generally tied to maintain and
uphold their houses) shall bear the losse of the fire; and they say that
tenants should against all casualties of fire beginning either in their
owne or in their neighbour's; but, where it is done by an enemy, they
are not to do it. And this was by an enemy, there having been one
convicted and hanged upon this very score. This is an excellent salvo
for the tenants, and for which I am glad, because of my father's house.
After dinner and this discourse I took coach, and at the same time find
my Lord Hinchingbroke and Mr. John Crew and the Doctor going out to see
the ruins of the City; so I took the Doctor into my hackney coach (and
he is a very fine sober gentleman), and so through the City. But,
Lord! what pretty and sober observations he made of the City and its