, who
was born at the same time with me, and we reckoned our fortunes pretty
equal. God fit me for his condition!

4th. Up, and sat at the office all the morning. At noon to the 'Change
and thence to the Dolphin, where a good dinner at the cost of one Mr.
Osbaston, who lost a wager to Sir W. Batten, Sir W. Rider, and Sir R.
Ford, a good while since and now it is spent. The wager was that ten of
our ships should not have a fight with ten of the enemy's before
Michaelmas. Here was other very good company, and merry, and at last in
come Mr. Buckeworth, a very fine gentleman, and proves to be a
Huntingdonshire man. Thence to my office and there all the afternoon till
night, and so home to settle some accounts of Tangier and other papers. I
hear this day the Duke and Prince Rupert are both come back from sea, and
neither of them go back again. The latter I much wonder at, but it seems
the towne reports so, and I am very glad of it. This morning I did a good
piece of work with Sir W. Warren, ending the business of the lotterys,
wherein honestly I think I shall get above L100. Bankert, it seems, is
come home with the little fleete he hath been abroad with, without doing
any thing, so that there is nobody of an enemy at sea. We are in great
hopes of meeting with the Dutch East India fleete, which is mighty rich,
or with De Ruyter, who is so also. Sir Richard Ford told me this day, at
table, a fine account, how the Dutch were like to have been mastered by
the present Prince of Orange

[The period alluded to is 1650, when the States-General disbanded
part of the forces which the Prince of Orange (William) wished to
retain. The prince attempted, but unsuccessfully, to possess
himself of Amsterdam. In the same year he died, at the early age of
twenty-four; some say of the small-pox; others, with Sir Richard
Ford, say of poison.--B.]

his father to be besieged in Amsterdam, having drawn an army of foot into
the towne, and horse near to the towne by night, within three miles of the
towne, and they never knew of it; but by chance the Hamburgh post in the
night fell among the horse, and heard their design, and knowing the way,
it being very dark and rainy, better than they, went from them, and did
give notice to the towne before the others could reach the towne, and so
were saved. It seems this De Witt and another family, the Beckarts, were
among the chief of the familys that were enemys t