very bad,
and the weather worse, for wind and rayne. But we got in good time
thither, and I did get my tallys got ready, and thence, with as many as
could go, to Yowell, and there dined very well, and I saw my Besse, a
very well-favoured country lass there, and after being very merry and
having spent a piece I took horse, and by another way met with a very
good road, but it rained hard and blew, but got home very well. Here
I find Mr. Deering come to trouble me about business, which I soon
dispatched and parted, he telling me that Luellin hath been dead this
fortnight, of the plague, in St. Martin's Lane, which much surprised me.

21st. Up, and to the office, where all the morning doing business, and
at noon home to dinner and quickly back again to the office, where very
busy all the evening and late sent a long discourse to Mr. Coventry by
his desire about the regulating of the method of our payment of bills
in the Navy, which will be very good, though, it may be, he did ayme
principally at striking at Sir G. Carteret. So weary but pleased with
this business being over I home to supper and to bed.

22nd. Up, and by water to the Duke of Albemarle, and there did some
little business, but most to shew myself, and mightily I am yet in his
and Lord Craven's books, and thence to the Swan and there drank and so
down to the bridge, and so to the 'Change, where spoke with many people,
and about a great deale of business, which kept me late. I heard this
day that Mr. Harrington is not dead of the plague, as we believed, at
which I was very glad, but most of all, to hear that the plague is come
very low; that is, the whole under 1,000, and the plague 600 and odd:
and great hopes of a further decrease, because of this day's being a
very exceeding hard frost, and continues freezing. This day the first of
the Oxford Gazettes come out, which is very pretty, full of newes, and
no folly in it. Wrote by Williamson. Fear that our Hambro' ships at last
cannot go, because of the great frost, which we believe it is there,
nor are our ships cleared at the Pillow [Pillau], which will keepe them
there too all this winter, I fear. From the 'Change, which is pretty
full again, I to my office and there took some things, and so by water
to my lodging at Greenwich and dined, and then to the office awhile and
at night home to my lodgings, and took T. Willson and T. Hater with me,
and there spent the evening till midnight discoursing and settling of