ficer of the Navy, on whom, for all the world knows, the faults of all
our evils are to be laid, do fear to be seized on by some rude hands as
having money to answer for, which will make me the more desirous to get
off of this Treasurership as soon as I can, as I had before in my mind
resolved. Having done all this discourse, and concluded the kingdom in
a desperate condition, we parted; and I to my wife, with whom was Mercer
and Betty Michell, poor woman, come with her husband to see us after
the death of her little girle. We sat in the garden together a while,
it being night, and then Mercer and I a song or two, and then in (the
Michell's home), my wife, Mercer, and I to supper, and then parted and
to bed.

25th. Up, and with Sir W. Pen in his new chariot (which indeed is plain,
but pretty and more fashionable in shape than any coach he hath, and yet
do not cost him, harness and all, above L32) to White Hall; where staid
a very little: and thence to St. James's to [Sir] W. Coventry, whom I
have not seen since before the coming of the Dutch into the river, nor
did indeed know how well to go see him, for shame either to him or me,
or both of us, to find ourselves in so much misery. I find that he and
his fellow-Treasurers are in the utmost want of money, and do find fault
with Sir G. Carteret, that, having kept the mystery of borrowing money
to himself so long, to the ruin of the nation, as [Sir] W. Coventry said
in words to [Sir] W. Pen and me, he should now lay it aside and come to
them for money for every penny he hath, declaring that he can raise no
more: which, I confess, do appear to me the most like ill-will of any
thing that I have observed of [Sir] W. Coventry, when he himself did
tell us, on another occasion at the same time, that the bankers who used
to furnish them money are not able to lend a farthing, and he knows well
enough that that was all the mystery [Sir] G. Carteret did use, that is,
only his credit with them. He told us the masters and owners of the
two ships that I had complained of, for not readily setting forth their
ships, which we had taken up to make men-of-war, had been yesterday with
the King and Council, and had made their case so well understood, that
the King did owe them for what they had earned the last year, that they
could not set them out again without some money or stores out of the
King's Yards; the latter of which [Sir] W. Coventry said must be done,
for that they were not able to