en every body was weary of sitting, and were already possessed
with the effect of the whole letter; to trouble them with a letter a
quarter of an hour long, was a most absurd thing. After the play done,
and nothing pleasing them from the time of the letter to the end of the
play, people being put into a bad humour of disliking (which is another
thing worth the noting), I home by coach, and could not forbear laughing
almost all the way home, and all the evening to my going to bed, at the
ridiculousness of the letter, and the more because my wife was angry
with me, and the world, for laughing, because the King was there,
though she cannot defend the length of the letter. So after having done
business at the office, I home to supper and to bed.

20th (Lord's day). Up, and put on my new tunique of velvett; which is
very plain, but good. This morning is brought to me an order for the
presenting the Committee of Parliament to-morrow with a list of the
commanders and ships' names of all the fleetes set out since the war,
and particularly of those ships which were divided from the fleete with
Prince Rupert;

[This question of the division of the fleet in May, 1666, was one
over which endless controversy as to responsibility was raised.
When Prince Rupert, with twenty ships, was detached to prevent the
junction of the French squadron with the Dutch, the Duke of
Albemarle was left with fifty-four ships against eighty belonging to
the Dutch. Albemarle's tactics are praised by Captain Mahan.]

which gives me occasion to see that they are busy after that business,
and I am glad of it. So I alone to church, and then home, and there
Mr. Deane comes and dines with me by invitation, and both at and after
dinner he and I spent all the day till it was dark in discourse of
business of the Navy and the ground of the many miscarriages, wherein he
do inform me in many more than I knew, and I had desired him to put
them in writing, and many indeed they are and good ones; and also
we discoursed of the business of shipping, and he hath promised me a
draught of the ship he is now building, wherein I am mightily pleased.
This afternoon comes to me Captain O'Bryan, about a ship that the King
hath given him; and he and I to talk of the Parliament; and he tells
me that the business of the Duke of York's slackening sail in the first
fight, at the beginning of the war, is brought into question, and Sir W.
Pen and Captai