ch they were going to order him to be sunk, when they looked
and found it was Du Tell, who, as the Duke of Albemarle says, had killed
several men in several of our ships. He said, but for his interest,
which he knew he had at Court, he had hanged him at the yard's-arm,
without staying for a Court-martiall. One Colonel Howard, at the table,
magnified the Duke of Albemarle's fight in June last, as being a greater
action than ever was done by Caesar. The Duke of Albemarle, did say it
had been no great action, had all his number fought, as they should have
done, to have beat the Dutch; but of his 55 ships, not above 25 fought.
He did give an account that it was a fight he was forced to: the Dutch
being come in his way, and he being ordered to the buoy of the Nore, he
could not pass by them without fighting, nor avoid them without great
disadvantage and dishonour; and this Sir G. Carteret, I afterwards
giving him an account of what he said, says that it is true, that he
was ordered up to the Nore. But I remember he said, had all his captains
fought, he would no more have doubted to have beat the Dutch, with all
their number, than to eat the apple that lay on his trencher. My Lady
Duchesse, among other things, discoursed of the wisdom of dividing the
fleete; which the General said nothing to, though he knows well that
it come from themselves in the fleete, and was brought up hither by Sir
Edward Spragge. Colonel Howard, asking how the prince did, the Duke of
Albemarle answering, "Pretty well;" the other replied, "But not so well
as to go to sea again."--"How!" says the Duchess, "what should he go
for, if he were well, for there are no ships for him to command? And so
you have brought your hogs to a fair market," said she. [It was pretty
to hear the Duke of Albemarle himself to wish that they would come on
our ground, meaning the French, for that he would pay them, so as to
make them glad to go back to France again; which was like a general, but
not like an admiral.] One at the table told an odd passage in this late
plague: that at Petersfield, I think, he said, one side of the street
had every house almost infected through the town, and the other, not one
shut up. Dinner being done, I brought Balty to the Duke of Albemarle to
kiss his hand and thank him far his kindness the last year to him, and
take leave of him, and then Balty and I to walk in the Park, and, out
of pity to his father, told him what I had in my thoughts to do f