s for every man to have had leave to have given him
a shilling; and that he might take it of every man that had a mind to
give it, and being answered that that was a fair thing, but what needed
he a patent for it, and what he would do to them that would not give
him. He answered, he would not force them; but that they should come to
the Council of State, to give a reason why they would not. Another rule
is a proverb that he hath been taught, which is that a man that cannot
sit still in his chamber (the reason of which I did not understand him),
and he that cannot say no (that is, that is of so good a nature that he
cannot deny any thing, or cross another in doing any thing), is not fit
for business. The last of which is a very great fault of mine, which
I must amend in. Thence by boat; I being hot, he put the skirt of
his cloak about me; and it being rough, he told me the passage of a
Frenchman through London Bridge, where, when he saw the great fall, he
begun to cross himself and say his prayers in the greatest fear in the
world, and soon as he was over, he swore "Morbleu! c'est le plus grand
plaisir du monde," being the most like a French humour in the world.

[When the first editions of this Diary were printed no note was
required here. Before the erection of the present London Bridge the
fall of water at the ebb tide was great, and to pass at that time
was called "Shooting the bridge". It was very hazardous for small
boats. The ancient mode, even in Henry VIII.'s time, of going to
the Tower and Greenwich, was to land at the Three Cranes, in Upper
Thames Street, suffer the barges to shoot the bridge, and to enter
them again at Billingsgate. See Cavendish's "Wolsey," p. 40, ed.
1852]

To Deptford, and there surprised the Yard, and called them to a muster,
and discovered many abuses, which we shall be able to understand
hereafter and amend. Thence walked to Redriffe, and so to London Bridge,
where I parted with him, and walked home and did a little business, and
to supper and to bed.

9th. Up by four o'clock or a little after, and to my office, whither by
and by comes Cooper, to whom I told my getting for him the Reserve, for
which he was very thankful, and fell to work upon our modell, and did a
good morning's work upon the rigging, and am very sorry that I must lose
him so soon. By and by comes Mr. Coventry, and he and I alone sat at the
office all the morning upon b