ne durst not breathe. Drank at the
old house, and so home, and then to the office a little, and so home to
supper and to bed.
19th. Up and comes the flageolet master, and brings me two new great
Ivory pipes which cost me 32s., and so to play, and he being done, and
Balty's wife taking her leave of me, she going back to Lee to-day, I to
Westminster and there did receive L15,000 orders out of the Exchequer
in part of a bigger sum upon the eleven months tax for Tangier, part of
which I presently delivered to Sir H. Cholmly, who was there, and thence
with Mr. Gawden to Auditor Woods and Beales to examine some precedents
in his business of the Victualling on his behalf, and so home, and in my
way by coach down Marke Lane, mightily pleased and smitten to see, as I
thought, in passing, the pretty woman, the line-maker's wife that lived
in Fenchurch Streete, and I had great mind to have gone back to have
seen, but yet would correct my nature and would not. So to dinner with
my wife, and then to sing, and so to the office, where busy all the
afternoon late, and to Sir W. Batten's and to Sir R. Ford's, we all
to consider about our great prize at Hull, being troubled at our being
likely to be troubled with Prince Rupert, by reason of Hogg's consorting
himself with two privateers of the Prince's, and so we study how to ease
or secure ourselves. So to walk in the garden with my wife, and then to
supper and to bed. One tells me that, by letter from Holland, the people
there are made to believe that our condition in England is such as they
may have whatever they will ask; and that so they are mighty high, and
despise us, or a peace with us; and there is too much reason for them
to do so. The Dutch fleete are in great squadrons everywhere still about
Harwich, and were lately at Portsmouth; and the last letters say at
Plymouth, and now gone to Dartmouth to destroy our Streights' fleete
lately got in thither; but God knows whether they can do it any hurt,
or no, but it was pretty news come the other day so fast, of the Dutch
fleets being in so many places, that Sir W. Batten at table cried, "By
God," says he, "I think the Devil shits Dutchmen."
20th. Up and to the office, where all the morning, and then towards the
'Change, at noon, in my way observing my mistake yesterday in Mark Lane,
that the woman I saw was not the pretty woman I meant, the line-maker's
wife, but a new-married woman, very pretty, a strong-water seller: and
in goin
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