iness of Sherenesse, and want of armes and ammunition there
and every where: and all their officers were here to-day attending, but
only one called in, about armes for boats, to answer Commissioner Pett.
None of my brethren said anything but me there, but only two or three
silly words my Lord Bruncker gave, in answer to one question about the
number of men there were in the King's Yard at the time. At last, the
House dismissed us, and shortly after did adjourne the debate till
Friday next: and my cozen Pepys did come out and joy me in my acquitting
myself so well, and so did several others, and my fellow-officers all
very brisk to see themselves so well acquitted; which makes me a little
proud, but yet not secure but we may yet meet with a back-blow which we
see not. So, with our hearts very light, Sir W. Pen and I in his coach
home, it being now near eight o'clock, and so to the office, and did a
little business by the post, and so home, hungry, and eat a good supper,
and so, with my mind well at ease, to bed. My wife not very well of
those.

23rd. Up, and Sir W. Pen and I in his coach to White Hall, there to
attend the Duke of York; but come a little too late, and so missed it:
only spoke with him, and heard him correct my Lord Barkeley, who fell
foul on Sir Edward Spragg, who, it seems, said yesterday to the House,
that if the Officers of the Ordnance had done as much work at Shereness
in ten weeks as "The Prince" did in ten days, he could have defended the
place against the Dutch: but the Duke of York told him that every body
must have liberty, at this time, to make their own defence, though it
be to the charging of the fault upon any other, so it be true; so I
perceive the whole world is at work in blaming one another. Thence
Sir W. Pen and I back into London; and there saw the King, with his
kettle-drums and trumpets, going to the Exchange, to lay the first stone
of the first pillar of the new building of the Exchange; which, the
gates being shut, I could not get in to see: but, with Sir W. Pen, to
Captain Cocke's to drink a dram of brandy, and so he to the Treasury
office about Sir G. Carteret's accounts, and I took coach and back again
toward Westminster; but in my way stopped at the Exchange, and got in,
the King being newly gone; and there find the bottom of the first pillar
laid. And here was a shed set up, and hung with tapestry, and a canopy
of state, and some good victuals and wine, for the King, who, it se