reenwich and
sent away the Bezan, thinking to go with my wife to-night to come back
again to-morrow night to the Soveraigne at the buoy off the Nore. Coming
back to Deptford, old Bagwell walked a little way with me, and would have
me in to his daughter's, and there he being gone 'dehors, ego had my
volunte de su hiza'. Eat and drank and away home, and after a little at
the office to my chamber to put more things still in order, and late to
bed. The people die so, that now it seems they are fain to carry the dead
to be buried by day-light, the nights not sufficing to do it in. And my
Lord Mayor commands people to be within at nine at night all, as they say,
that the sick may have liberty to go abroad for ayre. There is one also
dead out of one of our ships at Deptford, which troubles us mightily; the
Providence fire-ship, which was just fitted to go to sea. But they tell
me to-day no more sick on board. And this day W. Bodham tells me that one
is dead at Woolwich, not far from the Rope-yard. I am told, too, that a
wife of one of the groomes at Court is dead at Salsbury; so that the King
and Queene are speedily to be all gone to Milton. God preserve us!

13th (Lord's day). Up betimes and to my chamber, it being a very wet day
all day, and glad am I that we did not go by water to see "The Soveraigne"

["The Sovereign of the Seas" was built at Woolwich in 1637 of timber
which had been stripped of its bark while growing in the spring, and
not felled till the second autumn afterwards; and it is observed by
Dr. Plot ("Phil. Trans." for 1691), in his discourse on the most
seasonable time for felling timber, written by the advice of Pepys,
that after forty-seven years, "all the ancient timber then remaining
in her, it was no easy matter to drive a nail into it" ("Quarterly
Review," vol. viii., p. 35).--B.]

to-day, as I intended, clearing all matters in packing up my papers and
books, and giving instructions in writing to my executors, thereby
perfecting the whole business of my will, to my very great joy; so that I
shall be in much better state of soul, I hope, if it should please the
Lord to call me away this sickly time. At night to read, being weary with
this day's great work, and then after supper to bed, to rise betimes
to-morrow, and to bed with a mind as free as to the business of the world
as if I were not worth L100 in the whole world, every thing being evened
under