business of Sir W. Pen's, to the office, and there busy all
the afternoon. This evening Sir W. Batten and [Sir] W. Pen and I met at
[Sir] W. Batten's house, and there I took an opportunity to break the
business, at which [Sir] W. Pen is much disturbed, and would excuse it
the most he can, but do it so basely, that though he do offer to let go
his pretence to her, and resign up his order for her, and come in only
to ask his share of her (which do very well please me, and give me
present satisfaction), yet I shall remember him for a knave while I
live. But thus my mind is quieted for the present more than I thought
I should be, and am glad that I shall have no need of bidding him open
defiance, which I would otherwise have done, and made a perpetual war
between us. So to the office, and there busy pretty late, and so home
and to supper with my wife, and so to bed.

19th. Up, and all the morning at the office. At noon home to dinner, W.
Hewer and I and my wife, when comes my cozen, Kate Joyce, and an aunt of
ours, Lettice, formerly Haynes, and now Howlett, come to town to see her
friends, and also Sarah Kite, with her little boy in her armes, a very
pretty little boy. The child I like very well, and could wish it my own.
My wife being all unready, did not appear. I made as much of them as
I could such ordinary company; and yet my heart was glad to see them,
though their condition was a little below my present state, to be
familiar with. She tells me how the lifeguard, which we thought a little
while since was sent down into the country about some insurrection,
was sent to Winchcombe, to spoil the tobacco there, which it seems the
people there do plant contrary to law, and have always done, and still
been under force and danger of having it spoiled, as it hath been
oftentimes, and yet they will continue to plant it.

[Winchcombe St. Peter, a market-town in Gloucestershire. Tobacco
was first cultivated in this parish, after its introduction into
England, in 1583, and it proved, a considerable source of profit to
the inhabitants, till the trade was placed under restrictions. The
cultivation was first prohibited during the Commonwealth, and
various acts were passed in the reign of Charles II. for the same
purpose. Among the king's pamphlets in the British Museum is a
tract entitled "Harry Hangman's Honour, or Glostershire Hangman's
Request to the Smokers and Tobacconists of Lond