h. Up by break of day, and walked down to the old Swan, where I find
little Michell building, his booth being taken down, and a foundation
laid for a new house, so that that street is like to be a very fine
place. I drank, but did not see Betty, and so to Charing Cross stairs,
and thence walked to Sir W. Coventry's,

[Sir William Coventry's love of money is said by Sir John Denham to
have influenced him in promoting naval officers, who paid him for
their commissions.

"Then Painter! draw cerulian Coventry
Keeper, or rather Chancellor o' th' sea
And more exactly to express his hue,
Use nothing but ultra-mariuish blue.
To pay his fees, the silver trumpet spends,
And boatswain's whistle for his place depends.
Pilots in vain repeat their compass o'er,
Until of him they learn that one point more
The constant magnet to the pole doth hold,
Steel to the magnet, Coventry to gold.
Muscovy sells us pitch, and hemp, and tar;
Iron and copper, Sweden; Munster, war;
Ashley, prize; Warwick, custom;
Cart'ret, pay;
But Coventry doth sell the fleet away."--B.]

and talked with him, who tells me how he hath been persecuted, and how
he is yet well come off in the business of the dividing of the fleete,
and the sending of the letter. He expects next to be troubled about the
business of bad officers in the fleete, wherein he will bid them name
whom they call bad, and he will justify himself, having never disposed
of any but by the Admiral's liking. And he is able to give an account of
all them, how they come recommended, and more will be found to have
been placed by the Prince and Duke of Albemarle than by the Duke of York
during the war, and as no bad instance of the badness of officers he
and I did look over the list of commanders, and found that we could
presently recollect thirty-seven commanders that have been killed in
actuall service this war. He tells me that Sir Fr. Hollis is the main
man that hath persecuted him hitherto, in the business of dividing the
fleete, saying vainly that the want of that letter to the Prince hath
given him that, that he shall remember it by to his grave, meaning the
loss of his arme; when, God knows! he is as idle and insignificant a
fellow as ever come into the flee