urite at Court, and was knighted on
August 28th, 1668. In the spring of 1669 he returned to Spain as
Envoy Extraordinary, and in 1671 he became Ambassador. On July
11th, 1696, he died at Madrid, having been for some years a Roman
Catholic.]

at his lodgings, who is lately come from Spain from my Lord Sandwich,
and did, the other day, meeting me in White Hall, compliment me
mightily, and so I did offer him this visit, but missed him, and so
back and took up my wife and set her at Mrs. Turner's, and I to my
bookbinder's, and there, till late at night, binding up my second part
of my Tangier accounts, and I all the while observing his working, and
his manner of gilding of books with great pleasure, and so home, and
there busy late, and then to bed. This day Griffin did, in discourse in
the coach, put me in the head of the little house by our garden, where
old goodman Taylor puts his brooms and dirt, to make me a stable of,
which I shall improve, so as, I think, to be able to get me a stable
without much charge, which do please me mightily. He did also in
discourse tell me that it is observed, and is true, in the late fire of
London, that the fire burned just as many Parish-Churches as there were
hours from the beginning to the end of the fire; and, next, that there
were just as many Churches left standing as there were taverns left
standing in the rest of the City that was not burned, being, I think he
told me, thirteen in all of each: which is pretty to observe.

FEBRUARY 1667-1668

February 1st. Up, and to the office pretty betimes, and the Board
not meeting as soon as I wished, I was forced to go to White Hall in
expectation of a Committee for Tangier, but when I come it was put off,
and so home again to the office, and sat till past two o'clock; where at
the Board some high words passed between Sir W. Pen and I, begun by me,
and yielded to by him, I being in the right in finding fault with him
for his neglect of duty. At noon home to dinner, and after dinner out
with my wife, thinking to have gone to the Duke of York's playhouse,
but was, to my great content in the saving my vow, hindered by coming a
little too late; and so, it being a fine day, we out to Islington, and
there to the old house and eat cheese-cakes and drank and talked, and so
home in the evening, the ways being mighty bad, so as we had no pleasure
in being abroad at all almost, but only the variety of it, and so to
the off