ndeed. So home to my letters, and
then to my supper and to bed.

2nd (Lord's day). Up, and to church, and after church home to dinner,
where I met Betty Michell and her husband, very merry at dinner, and
after dinner, having borrowed Sir W. Pen's coach, we to Westminster,
they two and my wife and I to Mr. Martin's, where find the company
almost all come to the christening of Mrs. Martin's child, a girl. A
great deal of good plain company. After sitting long, till the church
was done, the Parson comes, and then we to christen the child. I was
Godfather, and Mrs. Holder (her husband, a good man, I know well), and
a pretty lady, that waits, it seems, on my Lady Bath, at White Hall, her
name, Mrs. Noble, were Godmothers. After the christening comes in the
wine and the sweetmeats, and then to prate and tattle, and then very
good company they were, and I among them. Here was old Mrs. Michell and
Howlett, and several married women of the Hall, whom I knew mayds. Here
was also Mrs. Burroughs and Mrs. Bales, the young widow, whom I led
home, and having staid till the moon was up, I took my pretty gossip
to White Hall with us, and I saw her in her lodging, and then my owne
company again took coach, and no sooner in the coach but something
broke, that we were fain there to stay till a smith could be fetched,
which was above an hour, and then it costing me 6s. to mend. Away round
by the wall and Cow Lane,

[Cow Lane, West Smithfield (now named King Street), was famous for
its coachmakers.]

for fear it should break again; and in pain about the coach all the way.
But to ease myself therein Betty Michell did sit at the same end with
me. ... Being very much pleased with this, we at last come home, and so
to supper, and then sent them by boat home, and we to bed. When I come
home I went to Sir W. Batten's, and there I hear more ill newes still:
that all our New England fleete, which went out lately, are put back a
third time by foul weather, and dispersed, some to one port and some to
another; and their convoys also to Plymouth; and whether any of them be
lost or not, we do not know. This, added to all the rest, do lay us flat
in our hopes and courages, every body prophesying destruction to the
nation.

3rd. Up, and, among a great many people that come to speak with me, one
was my Lord Peterborough's gentleman, who comes to me to dun me to get
some money advanced for my Lord; and I demanding what newes, he tells me
that