I with Sir
J. Minnes to White Hall, where met by Sir W. Batten and Lord Bruncker,
to attend the King and Duke of York at the Cabinet; but nobody had
determined what to speak of, but only in general to ask for money. So
I was forced immediately to prepare in my mind a method of discoursing.
And anon we were called in to the Green Room, where the King, Duke of
York, Prince Rupert, Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, Duke of Albemarle,
[Sirs] G. Carteret, W. Coventry, Morrice. Nobody beginning, I did, and
made a current, and I thought a good speech, laying open the ill state
of the Navy: by the greatness of the debt; greatness of work to do
against next yeare; the time and materials it would take; and our
incapacity, through a total want of money. I had no sooner done, but
Prince Rupert rose up and told the King in a heat, that whatever
the gentleman had said, he had brought home his fleete in as good a
condition as ever any fleete was brought home; that twenty boats would
be as many as the fleete would want: and all the anchors and cables left
in the storm might be taken up again. This arose from my saying, among
other things we had to do, that the fleete was come in--the greatest
fleete that ever his Majesty had yet together, and that in as bad
condition as the enemy or weather could put it; and to use Sir W. Pen's
words, who is upon the place taking a survey, he dreads the reports he
is to receive from the Surveyors of its defects. I therefore did only
answer, that I was sorry for his Highness's offence, but that what I
said was but the report we received from those entrusted in the fleete
to inform us. He muttered and repeated what he had said; and so, after a
long silence on all hands, nobody, not so much as the Duke of Albemarle,
seconding the Prince, nor taking notice of what he said, we withdrew.
I was not a little troubled at this passage, and the more when speaking
with Jacke Fenn about it, he told me that the Prince will be asking now
who this Pepys is, and find him to be a creature of my Lord Sandwich's,
and therefore this was done only to disparage him. Anon they broke, up,
and Sir W. Coventry come out; so I asked his advice. He told me he
had said something to salve it, which was, that his Highnesse had, he
believed, rightly informed the King that the fleete is come in good
condition to have staid out yet longer, and have fought the enemy,
but yet that Mr. Pepys his meaning might be, that, though in so good
cond