my landlady's daughter, and then little
Mistress Frances Tooker and her mother, a pretty woman come to see
my wife. Anon to supper, and then to dance again (Golding being our
fiddler, who plays very well and all tunes) till past twelve at night,
and then we broke up and every one to bed, we make shift for all our
company, Mrs. Tooker being gone.

27th. Up, and after some pleasant discourse with my wife, I out, leaving
her and Mrs. Ferrers there, and I to Captain Cocke's, there to do some
business, and then away with Cocke in his coach through Kent Streete,
a miserable, wretched, poor place, people sitting sicke and muffled up
with plasters at every 4 or 5 doors. So to the 'Change, and thence I by
water to the Duke of Albemarle's, and there much company, but I staid
and dined, and he makes mighty much of me; and here he tells us the
Dutch are gone, and have lost above 160 cables and anchors, through the
last foule weather. Here he proposed to me from Mr. Coventry, as I
had desired of Mr. Coventry, that I should be Surveyor-Generall of the
Victualling business, which I accepted. But, indeed, the terms in which
Mr. Coventry proposes it for me are the most obliging that ever I could
expect from any man, and more; it saying me to be the fittest man in
England, and that he is sure, if I will undertake, I will perform it;
and that it will be also a very desirable thing that I might have this
encouragement, my encouragement in the Navy alone being in no wise
proportionable to my pains or deserts. This, added to the letter I had
three days since from Mr. Southerne, signifying that the Duke of Yorke
had in his master's absence opened my letter, and commanded him to tell
me that he did approve of my being the Surveyor-General, do make me
joyful beyond myself that I cannot express it, to see that as I do take
pains, so God blesses me, and hath sent me masters that do observe that
I take pains. After having done here, I back by water and to London,
and there met with Captain Cocke's coach again, and I went in it to
Greenwich and thence sent my wife in it to Woolwich, and I to the
office, and thence home late with Captain Taylor, and he and I settled
all accounts between us, and I do find that I do get above L129 of him
for my services for him within these six months. At it till almost
one in the morning, and after supper he away and I to bed, mightily
satisfied in all this, and in a resolution I have taken to-night with
Mr. Hater to