g so ill and my father, and after dinner to cheer myself, I having
the opportunity of Sir W. Coventry and the Duke of York's being out
of town, I alone out and to the Duke of York's play-house, where
unexpectedly I come to see only the young men and women of the house
act; they having liberty to act for their own profit on Wednesdays and
Fridays this Lent: and the play they did yesterday, being Wednesday, was
so well-taken, that they thought fit to venture it publickly to-day;
a play of my Lord Falkland's' called "The Wedding Night," a kind of
a tragedy, and some things very good in it, but the whole together, I
thought, not so. I confess I was well enough pleased with my seeing
it: and the people did do better, without the great actors, than I did
expect, but yet far short of what they do when they are there, which I
was glad to find the difference of. Thence to rights home, and there
to the office to my business hard, being sorry to have made this scape
without my wife, but I have a good salvo to my oath in doing it. By and
by, in the evening, comes Sir W. Batten's Mingo to me to pray me to come
to his master and Sir Richard Ford, who have very ill news to tell me.
I knew what it was, it was about our trial for a good prize to-day, "The
Phoenix,"

[There are references to the "Phoenix," a Dutch ship taken as a
prize, among the State Papers (see "Calendar," 1666-67, p. 404).
Pepys appears to have got into trouble at a later date in respect to
this same ship, for among the Rawlinson MSS. (A. 170) are "Papers
relating to the charge brought against him in the House of Commons
in 1689 with reference to the ship Phoenix and the East India
Company in 1681-86."]

a worth two or L3000. I went to them, where they told me with much
trouble how they had sped, being cast and sentenced to make great
reparation for what we had embezzled, and they did it so well that I was
much troubled at it, when by and by Sir W. Batten asked me whether I
was mortified enough, and told me we had got the day, which was mighty
welcome news to me and us all. But it is pretty to see what money will
do. Yesterday, Walker was mighty cold on our behalf, till Sir W. Batten
promised him, if we sped in this business of the goods, a coach; and
if at the next trial we sped for the ship, we would give him a pair
of horses. And he hath strove for us today like a prince, though the
Swedes' Agent was there with all the vehemence