ith overworking with them.

25th. Up, and to the office, where busy all the morning, and then at noon
to the 'Change with Mr. Hater, and there he and I to a tavern to meet
Captain Minors, which we did, and dined; and there happened to be Mr.
Prichard, a ropemaker of his acquaintance, and whom I know also, and did
once mistake for a fiddler, which sung well, and I asked him for such a
song that I had heard him sing, and after dinner did fall to discourse
about the business of the old contract between the King and the East India
Company for the ships of the King that went thither, and about this did
beat my brains all the afternoon, and then home and made an end of the
accounts to my great content, and so late home tired and my eyes sore, to
supper and to bed.

26th (Lord's day). Up, and with my wife to Church, and at noon home to
dinner. No strangers there; and all the afternoon and evening very late
doing serious business of my Tangier accounts, and examining my East India
accounts, with Mr. Poynter, whom I employed all this day, to transcribe it
fair; and so to supper, W. Hewer with us, and so the girl to comb my head
till I slept, and then to bed.

27th. It being weather like the beginning of a frost and the ground dry,
I walked as far as the Temple, and there took coach and to White Hall, but
the Committee not being met I to Westminster, and there I do hear of the
letter that is in the pamphlet this day of the King of France, declaring
his design to go on against Flanders, and the grounds of it, which do set
us mightily at rest. So to White Hall, and there a committee of Tangier,
but little done there, only I did get two or three little jobs done to the
perfecting two or three papers about my Tangier accounts. Here Mr. Povy
do tell me how he is like to lose his L400 a-year pension of the Duke of
York, which he took in consideration of his place which was taken from
him. He tells me the Duchesse is a devil against him, and do now come
like Queen Elizabeth, and sits with the Duke of York's Council, and sees
what they do; and she crosses out this man's wages and prices, as she sees
fit, for saving money; but yet, he tells me, she reserves L5000 a-year for
her own spending; and my Lady Peterborough, by and by, tells me that the
Duchesse do lay up, mightily, jewells. Thence to my Lady Peterborough's,
she desiring to speak with me. She loves to be taken dressing herself, as
I always find her; and there, after a l