in talk they told me about the taking of
"The Royal Charles;" that nothing but carelessness lost the ship, for
they might have saved her the very tide that the Dutch come up, if they
would have but used means and had had but boats: and that the want of
boats plainly lost all the other ships. That the Dutch did take her with
a boat of nine men, who found not a man on board her, and her laying so
near them was a main temptation to them to come on; and presently a man
went up and struck her flag and jacke, and a trumpeter sounded upon her
"Joan's placket is torn," that they did carry her down at a time,
both for tides and wind, when the best pilot in Chatham would not have
undertaken it, they heeling her on one side to make her draw little
water: and so carried her away safe. They being gone, by and by comes
Sir W. Pen home, and he and I together talking. He hath been at Court;
and in the first place, I hear the Duke of Cambridge is dead; a which is
a great loss to the nation, having, I think, never an heyre male now of
the King's or Duke's to succeed to the Crown. He tells me that they do
begin already to damn the Dutch, and call them cowards at White Hall,
and think of them and their business no better than they used to do;
which is very sad. The King did tell him himself, which is so, I was
told, here in the City, that the City, hath lent him L10,000, to be laid
out towards securing of the River of Thames; which, methinks, is a very
poor thing, that we should be induced to borrow by such mean sums.
He tells me that it is most manifest that one great thing making it
impossible for us to have set out a fleete this year, if we could have
done it for money or stores, was the liberty given the beginning of the
year for the setting out of merchant-men, which did take up, as is
said, above ten, if not fifteen thousand seamen: and this the other day
Captain Cocke tells me appears in the council-books, that is the number
of seamen required to man the merchant ships that had passes to go
abroad. By and by, my wife being here, they sat down and eat a bit of
their nasty victuals, and so parted and we to bed.

23rd (Lord's day). Up to my chamber, and there all the morning reading
in my Lord Coke's Pleas of the Crowne, very fine noble reading. After
church time comes my wife and Sir W. Pen his lady and daughter; and Mrs.
Markham and Captain Harrison (who come to dine with them), by invitation
end dined with me, they as good as inviti