Hall; and so, by and by, to the Council-Chamber, and heard a remarkable
cause pleaded between the Farmers of the Excise of Wiltshire, in
complaint against the justices of Peace of Salisbury: and Sir H. Finch
was for the former. But, Lord! to see how he did with his admirable
eloquence order the matter, is not to be conceived almost: so pleasant
a thing it is to hear him plead. Then at noon by coach home, and thither
by and by comes cozen Turner, and The., and Joyce, in their riding-clod:
they being come from their lodgings to her husbands chamber, at the
Temple, and there do lie, and purpose to go out of town on Friday next;
and here I had a good dinner for them. After dinner by water to White
Hall, where the Duke of York did meet our Office, and went with us to
the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury; and there we did go over all
the business of the state I had drawn up, of this year's action and
expence, which I did do to their satisfaction, and convincing them of
the necessity of providing more money, if possible, for us. Thence the
Duke of York being gone, I did there stay walking with Sir H. Cholmly in
the Court, talking of news; where he told me, that now the great design
of the Duke of Buckingham is to prevent the meeting, since he cannot
bring about with the King the dissolving, of this Parliament, that
the King may not need it; and therefore my Lord St. Albans is hourly
expected with great offers of a million of money,--[From Louis XIV. See
April 28th]--to buy our breach with the Dutch: and this, they do think,
may tempt the King to take the money, and thereby be out of a necessity
of calling the Parliament again, which these people dare not suffer to
meet again: but this he doubts, and so do I, that it will be to the ruin
of the nation if we fall out with Holland. This we were discoursing
when my boy comes to tell me that his mistress was at the Gate with the
coach, whither I went, and there find my wife and the whole company.
So she, and Mrs. Turner, and The., and Talbot, in mine: and Joyce, W.
Batelier, and I, in a hackney, to Hyde Park, where I was ashamed to be
seen; but mightily pleased, though troubled, with a drunken coachman
that did not remember when we come to 'light, where it was that he took
us up; but said at Hammersmith, and thither he was carrying of us
when we come first out of the Park. So I carried them all to
Hercules-Pillars, and there did treat them: and so, about ten at night,
parted, and