ffice till noon, busy, and then (which I think I
have not done three times in my life) left the board upon occasion of a
letter of Sir W. Coventry, and meeting Balty at my house I took him with
me by water, and to the Duke of Albemarle to give him an account of the
business, which was the escaping of some soldiers for the manning of a
few ships now going out with Harman to the West Indies, which is a
sad consideration that at the very beginning of the year and few ships
abroad we should be in such want of men that they do hide themselves,
and swear they will not go to be killed and have no pay. I find the Duke
of Albemarle at dinner with sorry company, some of his officers of the
Army; dirty dishes, and a nasty wife at table, and bad meat, of which I
made but an ill dinner. Pretty to hear how she talked against Captain
Du Tell, the Frenchman, that the Prince and her husband put out the last
year; and how, says she, the Duke of York hath made him, for his good
services, his Cupbearer; yet he fired more shot into the Prince's ship,
and others of the King's ships, than of the enemy. And the Duke of
Albemarle did confirm it, and that somebody in the fight did cry out
that a little Dutchman, by his ship, did plague him more than any other;
upon which they were going to order him to be sunk, when they looked
and found it was Du Tell, who, as the Duke of Albemarle says, had killed
several men in several of our ships. He said, but for his interest,
which he knew he had at Court, he had hanged him at the yard's-arm,
without staying for a Court-martiall. One Colonel Howard, at the table,
magnified the Duke of Albemarle's fight in June last, as being a greater
action than ever was done by Caesar. The Duke of Albemarle, did say it
had been no great action, had all his number fought, as they should have
done, to have beat the Dutch; but of his 55 ships, not above 25 fought.
He did give an account that it was a fight he was forced to: the Dutch
being come in his way, and he being ordered to the buoy of the Nore, he
could not pass by them without fighting, nor avoid them without great
disadvantage and dishonour; and this Sir G. Carteret, I afterwards
giving him an account of what he said, says that it is true, that he
was ordered up to the Nore. But I remember he said, had all his captains
fought, he would no more have doubted to have beat the Dutch, with all
their number, than to eat the apple that lay on his trencher. My Lady
Duchesse