o hold while he went
into the Committee Chamber in the Inner Court of Wards, and I walked
without with Mr. Slingsby, of the Tower, who was there, and who did in
walking inform me mightily in several things; among others, that the
heightening or lowering of money is only a cheat, and do good to some
particular men, which, if I can but remember how, I am now by him fully
convinced of. Anon Sir W. Pen went away, telling me that Sir W. Coventry
that was within had told him that the fleete is all come into the buoy
of the Nore, and that he must hasten down to them, and so went away, and
I into the Committee Chamber before the Committee sat, and there heard
Birch discourse highly and understandingly about the Navy business and
a proposal made heretofore to farm the Navy; but Sir W. Coventry did
abundantly answer him, and is a most excellent person. By and by the
Committee met, and I walked out, and anon they rose and called me in,
and appointed me to attend a Committee of them to-morrow at the office
to examine our lists. This put me into a mighty fear and trouble; they
doing it in a very ill humour, methought. So I away and called on my
Lord Bruncker to desire him to be there to-morrow, and so home, having
taken up my wife at Unthanke's, full of trouble in mind to think what
I shall be obliged to answer, that am neither fully fit, nor in any
measure concerned to take the shame and trouble of this office upon me,
but only from the inability and folly of the Comptroller that occasions
it. When come home I to Sir W. Pen's, to his boy, for my book, and
there find he hath it not, but delivered it to the doorekeeper of the
Committee for me. This, added to my former disquiet, made me stark mad,
considering all the nakedness of the office lay open in papers within
those covers. I could not tell in the world what to do, but was mad on
all sides, and that which made me worse Captain Cocke was there, and he
did so swear and curse at the boy that told me. So Cocke, Griffin, and
the boy with me, they to find the housekeeper of the Parliament, Hughes,
while I to Sir W. Coventry, but could hear nothing of it there. But
coming to our rendezvous at the Swan Taverne, in Ding Streete, I find
they have found the housekeeper, and the book simply locked up in the
Court. So I staid and drank, and rewarded the doore-keeper, and away
home, my heart lighter by all this, but to bed very sad notwithstanding,
in fear of what will happen to-morrow upon the