dined; and there happened to be
Mr. Prichard, a ropemaker of his acquaintance, and whom I know also,
and did once mistake for a fiddler, which sung well, and I asked him
for such a song that I had heard him sing, and after dinner did fall to
discourse about the business of the old contract between the King and
the East India Company for the ships of the King that went thither, and
about this did beat my brains all the afternoon, and then home and made
an end of the accounts to my great content, and so late home tired and
my eyes sore, to supper and to bed.

26th (Lord's day). Up, and with my wife to Church, and at noon home to
dinner. No strangers there; and all the afternoon and evening very late
doing serious business of my Tangier accounts, and examining my East
India accounts, with Mr. Poynter, whom I employed all this day, to
transcribe it fair; and so to supper, W. Hewer with us, and so the girl
to comb my head till I slept, and then to bed.

27th. It being weather like the beginning of a frost and the ground dry,
I walked as far as the Temple, and there took coach and to White Hall,
but the Committee not being met I to Westminster, and there I do hear
of the letter that is in the pamphlet this day of the King of France,
declaring his design to go on against Flanders, and the grounds of
it, which do set us mightily at rest. So to White Hall, and there a
committee of Tangier, but little done there, only I did get two or three
little jobs done to the perfecting two or three papers about my Tangier
accounts. Here Mr. Povy do tell me how he is like to lose his L400
a-year pension of the Duke of York, which he took in consideration of
his place which was taken from him. He tells me the Duchesse is a devil
against him, and do now come like Queen Elizabeth, and sits with the
Duke of York's Council, and sees what they do; and she crosses out this
man's wages and prices, as she sees fit, for saving money; but yet, he
tells me, she reserves L5000 a-year for her own spending; and my Lady
Peterborough, by and by, tells me that the Duchesse do lay up, mightily,
jewells. Thence to my Lady Peterborough's, she desiring to speak with
me. She loves to be taken dressing herself, as I always find her; and
there, after a little talk, to please her, about her husband's pension,
which I do not think he will ever get again, I away thence home, and all
the afternoon mighty busy at the office, and late, preparing a letter to
the Commissi