e
with this lady, who is a very fine witty lady, one of the best I ever
heard speake, and indifferent handsome. There after dinner an houre or
two, and so to the office, where ended my business with the Captains; and
I think of twenty-two ships we shall make shift to get out seven. (God
helpe us! men being sick, or provisions lacking.) And so to write letters
to Sir Ph. Warwicke, Sir W. Coventry, and Sir G. Carteret to Court about
the last six months' accounts, and sent away by an express to-night. This
day I hear the Pope is dead;--[a false report]--and one said, that the
newes is, that the King of France is stabbed, but that the former is very
true, which will do great things sure, as to the troubling of that part of
the world, the King of Spayne

[Philip IV., King of Spain, who succeeded to the throne in 1621,
died in 1665. He was succeeded by his son Charles II.]

being so lately dead. And one thing more, Sir Martin Noell's lady is dead
with griefe for the death of her husband and nothing else, as they say, in
the world; but it seems nobody can make anything of his estate, whether he
be dead worth anything or no, he having dealt in so many things, publique
and private, as nobody can understand whereabouts his estate is, which is
the fate of these great dealers at everything. So after my business being
done I home to my lodging and to bed,

9th. Up, my head full of business, and called upon also by Sir John Shaw,
to whom I did give a civil answer about our prize goods, that all his dues
as one of the Farmers of the Customes are paid, and showed him our
Transire; with which he was satisfied, and parted, ordering his servants
to see the weight of them. I to the office, and there found an order for
my coming presently to the Duke of Albemarle, and what should it be, but
to tell me, that, if my Lord Sandwich do not come to towne, he do resolve
to go with the fleete to sea himself, the Dutch, as he thinks, being in
the Downes, and so desired me to get a pleasure boat for to take him in
to-morrow morning, and do many other things, and with a great liking of
me, and my management especially, as that coxcombe my Lord Craven do tell
me, and I perceive it, and I am sure take pains enough to deserve it.
Thence away and to the office at London, where I did some business about
my money and private accounts, and there eat a bit of goose of Mr.
Griffin's, and so by water, it raining most miserably, to Greenwich,