able to go.
When I came home I found our new maid Sarah--[Sarah did not stay long
with Mrs. Pepys, who was continually falling out with her. She left to
enter Sir William Penn's service.]--come, who is a tall and a very well
favoured wench, and one that I think will please us. So to bed.

29th. I lay long in bed, till Sir Williams both sent me word that we
were to wait upon the Duke of York to-day; and that they would have me
to meet them at Westminster Hall, at noon: so I rose and went thither;
and there I understand that they are gone to Mr. Coventry's lodgings, in
the Old Palace Yard, to dinner (the first time I knew he had any); and
there I met them two and Sir G. Carteret, and had a very fine dinner,
and good welcome, and discourse; and so, by water, after dinner to White
Hall to the Duke, who met us in his closet; and there he did discourse
to us the business of Holmes, and did desire of us to know what hath
been the common practice about making of forrayne ships to strike sail
to us, which they did all do as much as they could; but I could say
nothing to it, which I was sorry for. So indeed I was forced to study a
lie, and so after we were gone from the Duke, I told Mr. Coventry that
I had heard Mr. Selden often say, that he could prove that in Henry the
7th's time, he did give commission to his captains to make the King of
Denmark's ships to strike to him in the Baltique. From thence Sir W. Pen
and I to the Theatre, but it was so full that we could hardly get any
room, so he went up to one of the boxes, and I into the 18d. places,
and there saw "Love at first sight," a play of Mr. Killigrew's, and the
first time that it hath been acted since before the troubles, and great
expectation there was, but I found the play to be a poor thing, and so I
perceive every body else do. So home, calling at Paul's Churchyard for
a "Mare Clausum," having it in my mind to write a little matter, what I
can gather, about the business of striking sayle, and present it to the
Duke, which I now think will be a good way to make myself known. So home
and to bed.

30th. In the morning to the Temple, Mr. Philips and Dr. Williams about
my several law matters, and so to the Wardrobe to dinner, and after
dinner stole away, my Lady not dining out of her chamber, and so home
and then to the office all the afternoon, and that being done Sir W.
Batten and I and Captain Cock got a bottle of sack into the office, and
there we sat late and drank a