want of coals in a little time is very
visible, and, is feared, will breed a mutiny; for we are not in any
prospect to command the sea for our colliers to come, but rather, it is
feared, the Dutch may go and burn all our colliers at Newcastle; though
others do say that they lie safe enough there. No news at all of late
from Bredagh what our Treaters do. By and by, all by water in three
boats to Greenwich, there to Cocke's, where we supped well, and then
late, Wren, Fenn, and I home by water, set me in at the Tower, and they
to White Hall, and so I home, and after a little talk with my wife to
bed.

24th. Up, and to the office, where much business upon me by the coming
of people of all sorts about the dispatch of one business or other of
the fire-ships, or other ships to be set out now. This morning Greeting
come, and I with him at my flageolet. At noon dined at home with my wife
alone, and then in the afternoon all the day at my office. Troubled a
little at a letter from my father, which tells me of an idle companion,
one Coleman, who went down with him and my wife in the coach, and come
up again with my wife, a pensioner of the King's Guard, and one that
my wife, indeed, made the feast for on Saturday last, though he did
not come; but if he knows nothing of our money I will prevent any other
inconvenience. In the evening comes Mr. Povy about business; and he and
I to walk in the garden an hour or two, and to talk of State matters.
He tells me his opinion that it is out of possibility for us to escape
being undone, there being nothing in our power to do that is necessary
for the saving us: a lazy Prince, no Council, no money, no reputation at
home or abroad. He says that to this day the King do follow the women as
much as ever he did; that the Duke of York hath not got Mrs. Middleton,
as I was told the other day: but says that he wants not her, for he hath
others, and hath always had, and that he [Povy] hath known them brought
through the Matted Gallery at White Hall into his [the Duke's] closet;
nay, he hath come out of his wife's bed, and gone to others laid in
bed for him: that Mr. Bruncker is not the only pimp, but that the whole
family is of the same strain, and will do anything to please him: that,
besides the death of the two Princes lately, the family is in horrible
disorder by being in debt by spending above L60,000 per. annum, when he
hath not L40,000: that the Duchesse is not only the proudest woman
in the wo