ourse the last night,
is now resolved to be done, upon the 26th of this month, the day of my
solemnity for my cutting of the stone, when my cozen Turner must be with
us. My wife, therefore, not at dinner; and comes to me Mr. Evelyn of
Deptford, a worthy good man, and dined with me, but a bad dinner; who is
grieved for, and speaks openly to me his thoughts of, the times, and our
ruin approaching; and all by the folly of the King. His business to me
was about some ground of his, at Deptford, next to the King's yard: and
after dinner we parted. My sister Michell coming also this day to
see us, whom I left there, and I away down by water with W. Hewer to
Woolwich, where I have not been I think more than a year or two, and
here I saw, but did not go on board, my ship "The Jerzy," she lying
at the wharf under repair. But my business was to speak with Ackworth,
about some old things and passages in the Navy, for my information
therein, in order to my great business now of stating the history of the
Navy. This I did; and upon the whole do find that the late times, in all
their management, were not more husbandly than we; and other things
of good content to me. His wife was sick, and so I could not see her.
Thence, after seeing Mr. Sheldon, I to Greenwich by water, and there
landed at the King's house, which goes on slow, but is very pretty.

[The old palace at Greenwich had just been pulled down, and a new
building commenced by Charles II., only one wing of which was
completed, at the expense of L36,000, under the auspices of Webb,
Inigo Jones's kinsman and executor. In 1694 the unfinished edifice
was granted by William and Mary to trustees for the use and service
of a Naval Hospital; and it has been repeatedly enlarged and
improved till it has arrived at its present splendour.--B.]

I to the Park, there to see the prospect of the hill, to judge of
Dancre's picture, which he hath made thereof for me: and I do like it
very well: and it is a very pretty place. Thence to Deptford, but staid
not, Uthwayte being out of the way: and so home, and then to the Ship
Tavern, Morrice's, and staid till W. Hewer fetched his uncle Blackburne
by appointment to me, to discourse of the business of the Navy in the
late times; and he did do it, by giving me a most exact account in
writing, of the several turns in the Admiralty and Navy, of the
persons employed therein, from the beginning of the King's leaving th