ve upon, and pay taxes for the whole. Wren says, that for
the Duke of York to stir in this matter, as his quality might justify,
would but make all things worse, and that therefore he must bend, and
suffer all, till time works it out: that he fears they will sacrifice
the Church, and that the King will take anything, and so he will hold up
his head a little longer, and then break in pieces. But Sir W. Coventry
did today mightily magnify my late Lord Treasurer, for a wise and solid,
though infirm man: and, among other things, that when he hath said it
was impossible in nature to find this or that sum of money, and my Lord
Chancellor hath made sport of it, and tell the King that when my Lord
hath said it [was] impossible, yet he hath made shift to find it, and
that was by Sir G. Carteret's getting credit, my Lord did once in his
hearing say thus, which he magnifies as a great saying--that impossible
would be found impossible at last; meaning that the King would run
himself out, beyond all his credit and funds, and then we should too
late find it impossible; which is, he says, now come to pass. For that
Sir W. Coventry says they could borrow what money they would, if they
had assignments, and funds to secure it with, which before they had
enough of, and then must spend it as if it would never have an end. From
White Hall to my cozen Turner's, and there took up my wife; and so to
my uncle Wight's, and there sat and supped, and talked pretty merry, and
then walked home, and to bed.
15th. Up, and with Tom to White Hall; and there at a Committee of
Tangier, where a great instance of what a man may lose by the neglect
of a friend: Povy never had such an opportunity of passing his accounts,
the Duke of York being there, and everybody well disposed, and in
expectation of them; but my Lord Ashly, on whom he relied, and for whose
sake this day was pitched on, that he might be sure to be there, among
the rest of his friends, staid too long, till the Duke of York and the
company thought unfit to stay longer and so the day lost, and God knows
when he will ever have so good a one again, as long as he lives;
and this was the man of the whole company that he hath made the most
interest to gain, and now most depended upon him. So up and down the
house a while, and then to the plaisterer's, and there saw the figure of
my face taken from the mould: and it is most admirably like, and I will
have another made, before I take it away, and there
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