should the
Lords yield to what the Commons would have in this matter, it were to
make them worse than any justice of Peace (whereas they are the highest
Court in the Kingdom) that they cannot be judges whether an offender be
to be committed or bailed, which every justice of Peace do do, and then
he showed me precedents plain in their defence. At noon home to
dinner, and busy all the afternoon, and at night home, and there met W.
Batelier, who tells me the first great news that my Lord Chancellor is
fled this day. By and by to Sir W. Pen's, where Sir R. Ford and he and
I met, with Mr. Young and Lewes, about our accounts with my Lady Batten,
which prove troublesome, and I doubt will prove to our loss. But here I
hear the whole that my Lord Chancellor is gone, and left a paper behind
him for the House of Lords, telling them the reason of him retiring,
complaining of a design for his ruin. But the paper I must get: only the
thing at present is great, and will put the King and Commons to some new
counsels certainly. So home to supper and to bed. Sir W. Pen I find
in much trouble this evening, having been called to the Committee this
afternoon, about the business of prizes. Sir Richard Ford told us this
evening an odd story of the basenesse of the late Lord Mayor, Sir W.
Bolton, in cheating the poor of the City, out of the collections made
for the people that were burned, of L1800; of which he can give no
account, and in which he hath forsworn himself plainly, so as the Court
of Aldermen have sequestered him from their Court till he do bring in an
account, which is the greatest piece of roguery that they say was ever
found in a Lord Mayor. He says also that this day hath been made appear
to them that the Keeper of Newgate, at this day, hath made his house the
only nursery of rogues, and whores, and pickpockets, and thieves in the
world; where they were bred and entertained, and the whole society met:
and that, for the sake of the Sheriffes, they durst not this day committ
him, for fear of making him let out the prisoners, but are fain to go by
artifice to deal with him. He tells me, also, speaking of the new street
that is to be made from Guild Hall down to Cheapside, that the ground
is already, most of it, bought. And tells me of one particular, of a man
that hath a piece of ground lieing in the very middle of the street
that must be; which, when the street is cut out of it, there will remain
ground enough, of each side, to b