et out such a fleete.

16th. Up, after talking with my wife with pleasure, about her learning
on the flageolet a month or two again this winter, and all the rest of
the year her painting, which I do love, and so to the office, where sat
all the morning, and here Lord Anglesey tells us again that a fleete is
to be set out; and that it is generally, he hears, said, that it is but
a Spanish rhodomontado; and that he saying so just now to the Duke of
Albemarle, who come to town last night, after the thing was ordered, he
told him a story of two seamen: one wished all the guns of the ship were
his, and that they were silver; and says the other, "You are a
fool, for, if you can have it for wishing, why do you not wish them
gold?"--"So," says he, "if a rhodomontado will do any good, why do you
not say 100 ships?" And it is true; for the Dutch and French are said
to make such preparations as 50 sail will do no good. At noon home to
dinner with my gang of clerks, in whose society I am mightily pleased,
and mightily with Mr. Gibson's talking;

[Richard Gibson, so frequently noticed by Pepys, was a clerk in the
Navy Office. His collection of papers relating to the navy of
England A.D. 1650-1702, compiled, as he states, from the Admiralty
books in the Navy Office, are in the British Museum.--B.]

he telling me so many good stories relating to the warr and practices
of commanders, which I will find a time to recollect; and he will be an
admirable help to my writing a history of the Navy, if ever I do. So to
the office, where busy all the afternoon and evening, and then home.
My work this night with my clerks till midnight at the office was to
examine my list of ships I am making for myself and their dimensions,
and to see how it agrees or differs from other lists, and I do find so
great a difference between them all that I am at a loss which to take,
and therefore think mine to be as much depended upon as any I can make
out of them all. So little care there has been to this day to know or
keep any history of the Navy.

17th. Up, and by coach to White Hall to attend the Council there, and
here I met first by Mr. Castle the shipwright, whom I met there, and
then from the whole house the discourse of the duell yesterday between
the Duke of Buckingham, Holmes, and one Jenkins, on one side, and my
Lord of Shrewsbury, Sir John Talbot, and one Bernard Howard, on the
other side: and all about my Lady Shrewsbury,