clapped up, and the
house pulled down by the Inquisitors; and the greatest Lord in
Spayne dare not say a word against it, if the word Inquisition be but
mentioned. At my Lord Treasurer's 'light and parted with them, they
going into Council, and I walked with Captain Cocke, who takes mighty
notice of the differences growing in our office between Lord Bruncker
and [Sir] W. Batten, and among others also, and I fear it may do us
hurt, but I will keep out of them. By and by comes Sir S. Fox, and he
and I walked and talked together on many things, but chiefly want of
money, and the straits the King brings himself and affairs into for want
of it. Captain Cocke did tell me what I must not forget: that the answer
of the Dutch, refusing The Hague for a place of treaty, and proposing
the Boysse, Bredah, Bergen-op-Zoome, or Mastricht, was seemingly stopped
by the Swede's Embassador (though he did show it to the King, but the
King would take no notice of it, nor does not) from being delivered to
the King; and he hath wrote to desire them to consider better of it: so
that, though we know their refusal of the place, yet they know not that
we know it, nor is the King obliged to show his sense of the affront.
That the Dutch are in very great straits, so as to be said to be not
able to set out their fleete this year. By and by comes Sir Robert Viner
and my Lord Mayor to ask the King's directions about measuring out the
streets according to the new Act for building of the City, wherein the
King is to be pleased.

[See Sir Christopher Wren's "Proposals for rebuilding the City of
London after the great fire, with an engraved Plan of the principal
Streets and Public Buildings," in Elmes's "Memoirs of Sir
Christopher Wren," Appendix, p.61. The originals are in All Souls'
College Library, Oxford.--B.]

But he says that the way proposed in Parliament, by Colonel Birch, would
have been the best, to have chosen some persons in trust, and sold the
whole ground, and let it be sold again by them, with preference to the
old owner, which would have certainly caused the City to be built where
these Trustees pleased; whereas now, great differences will be, and the
streets built by fits, and not entire till all differences be decided.
This, as he tells it, I think would have been the best way. I enquired
about the Frenchman

["One Hubert, a French papist, was seized in Essex, as he was
getting out of the way in gre