f to have ready against to-morrow, that
I might not appear negligent to Mr. Coventry. In the evening to Sir W.
Pen's, where Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten, and afterwards came Sir
G. Carteret. There talked about business, and afterwards to Sir W.
Batten's, where we staid talking and drinking Syder, and so I went away
to my office a little, and so home and to bed.
12th. Up, and to Sir W. Batten's to bid him and Sir J. Minnes adieu,
they going this day towards Portsmouth, and then to Sir W. Pen's to see
Sir J. Lawson, who I heard was there, where I found him the same plain
man that he was, after all his success in the Straights, with which
he is come loaded home. Thence to Sir G. Carteret, and with him in his
coach to White Hall, and first I to see my Lord Sandwich (being come now
from Hinchingbrooke), and after talking a little with him, he and I
to the Duke's chamber, where Mr. Coventry and he and I into the Duke's
closett and Sir J. Lawson discoursing upon business of the Navy, and
particularly got his consent to the ending some difficulties in Mr.
Creed's accounts. Thence to my Lord's lodgings, and with Mr. Creed to
the King's Head ordinary, but people being set down, we went to two
or three places; at last found some meat at a Welch cook's at Charing
Cross, and here dined and our boys. After dinner to the 'Change to buy
some linen for my wife, and going back met our two boys. Mine had struck
down Creed's boy in the dirt, with his new suit on, and the boy taken
by a gentlewoman into a house to make clean, but the poor boy was in a
pitifull taking and pickle; but I basted my rogue soundly. Thence to my
Lord's lodging, and Creed to his, for his papers against the Committee.
I found my Lord within, and he and I went out through the garden towards
the Duke's chamber, to sit upon the Tangier matters; but a lady called
to my Lord out of my Lady Castlemaine's lodging, telling him that the
King was there and would speak with him. My Lord could not tell what to
bid me say at the Committee to excuse his absence, but that he was with
the King; nor would suffer me to go into the Privy Garden (which is now
a through-passage, and common), but bid me to go through some other way,
which I did; so that I see he is a servant of the King's pleasures too,
as well as business. So I went to the Committee, where we spent all this
night attending to Sir J. Lawson's description of Tangier and the place
for the Mole,
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