r us in the Navy to have men that do
understand the whole, and that are not passionate; that we that have
taken the most pains are called upon to answer for all crimes, while
those that, like Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes, did sit and do
nothing, do lie still without any trouble; that, if it were to serve
the King and kingdom again in a war, neither of us could do more,
though upon this experience we might do better than we did; that the
commanders, the gentlemen that could never be brought to order, but
undid all, are now the men that find fault and abuse others; that it
had been much better for the King to have given Sir J. Minnes and Sir
W. Batten L1000 a-year to have sat still, than to have had them in his
business this war: that the serving a Prince that minds not his business
is most unhappy for them that serve him well, and an unhappiness so
great that he declares he will never have more to do with a war,
under him. That he hath papers which do flatly contradict the Duke of
Albemarle's Narrative; and that he hath been with the Duke of Albemarle
and shewed him them, to prevent his falling into another like fault:
that the Duke of Albemarle seems to be able to answer them; but he
thinks that the Duke of Albemarle and the Prince are contented to let
their Narratives sleep, they being not only contradictory in some things
(as he observed about the business of the Duke of Albemarle's being to
follow the Prince upon dividing the fleete, in case the enemy come out),
but neither of them to be maintained in others. That the business the
other night of my Lord Anglesey at the Council was happily got over
for my Lord, by his dexterous silencing it, and the rest, not urging it
further; forasmuch as, had the Duke of Buckingham come in time enough,
and had got it by the end, he, would have toused him in it; Sir W.
Coventry telling me that my Lord Anglesey did, with such impudence,
maintain the quarrel against the Commons and some of the Lords, in the
business of my Lord Clarendon, that he believes there are enough would
be glad but of this occasion to be revenged of him. He tells me that
he hears some of the Thomsons are like to be of the Commission for the
Accounts, and Wildman, which he much wonders at, as having been a false
fellow to every body, and in prison most of the time since the King's
coming in. But he do tell me that the House is in such a condition that
nobody can tell what to make of them, and, he thinks, they w