uild a house to front the street. He
demanded L700 for the ground, and to be excused paying any thing for
the melioration of the rest of his ground that he was to keep. The Court
consented to give him L700, only not to abate him the consideration:
which the man denied; but told them, and so they agreed, that he
would excuse the City the L700, that he might have the benefit of the
melioration without paying any thing for it. So much some will get by
having the City burned! But he told me that in other cases ground, by
this means, that was not 4d. a-foot before, will now, when houses are
built, be worth 15s. a-foot. But he tells me that the common standard
now reckoned on between man and man, in places where there is no
alteration of circumstances, but only the houses burnt, there the
ground, which, with a house on it, did yield L100 a-year, is now reputed
worth L33 6s. 8d.; and that this is the common market-price between one
man and another, made upon a good and moderate medium.

4th. At the office all the morning. At noon to dinner, and presently
with my wife abroad, whom and her girle I leave at Unthanke's, and so to
White Hall in expectation of waiting on the Duke of York to-day, but
was prevented therein, only at Mr. Wren's chamber there I hear that the
House of Lords did send down the paper which my Lord Chancellor left
behind him, directed to the Lords, to be seditious and scandalous; and
the Commons have voted that it be burned by the hands of the hangman,
and that the King be desired to agree to it. I do hear, also, that they
have desired the King to use means to stop his escape out of the nation.
Here I also heard Mr. Jermin, who was there in the chamber upon occasion
of Sir Thomas Harvy's telling him of his brother's having a child, and
thereby taking away his hopes (that is, Mr. Jermin's) of L2000 a year.
He swore, God damn him, he did not desire to have any more wealth than
he had in the world, which indeed is a great estate, having all his
uncle's, my Lord St. Alban's, and my Lord hath all the Queen-Mother's.
But when Sir Thos. Harvy told him that "hereafter you will wish
it more;"--"By God," answers he, "I won't promise what I shall do
hereafter." Thence into the House, and there spied a pretty woman with
spots on her face, well clad, who was enquiring for the guard chamber; I
followed her, and there she went up, and turned into the turning towards
the chapel, and I after her, and upon the stairs there met