old spectacles, but rather young ones, and do tell me that nothing
can wrong my eyes more than for me to use reading-glasses, which do
magnify much. Thence home, and there dined, and then abroad and left
my wife and Willett at her tailor's, and I to White Hall, where the
Commissioners of the Treasury do not sit, and therefore I to Westminster
to the Hall, and there meeting with Col. Reames I did very cheaply by
him get copies of the Prince's and Duke of Albemarle's Narratives, which
they did deliver the other day to the House, of which I am mighty glad,
both for my present information and for my future satisfaction. So back
by coach, and took up my wife, and away home, and there in my chamber
all the evening among my papers and my accounts of Tangier to my great
satisfaction, and so to supper and to bed.

5th. Up, and all the morning at the office. At noon home to dinner, and
thence out with my wife and girle, and left them at her tailor's, and
I to the Treasury, and there did a little business for Tangier, and so
took them up again, and home, and when I had done at the office, being
post night, I to my chamber, and there did something more, and so to
supper and to bed.

6th. Up, and to Westminster, where to the Parliament door, and there
spoke with Sir G. Downing, to see what was done yesterday at the
Treasury for Tangier, and it proved as good as nothing, so that I do see
we shall be brought to great straits for money there. He tells me here
that he is passing a Bill to make the Excise and every other part of the
King's Revenue assignable on the Exchequer, which indeed will be a very
good thing. This he says with great glee as an act of his, and how poor
a thing this was in the beginning, and with what envy he carried it on,
and how my Lord Chancellor could never endure him for it since he first
begun it. He tells me that the thing the House is just now upon is
that of taking away the charter from the Company of Woodmongers, whose
frauds, it seems, have been mightily laid before them. He tells me that
they are like to fly very high against my Lord Chancellor. Thence I
to the House of Lords, and there first saw Dr. Fuller, as Bishop of
Lincoln, to sit among the Lords. Here I spoke with the Duke of York and
the Duke of Albemarle about Tangier; but methinks both of them do look
very coldly one upon another, and their discourse mighty cold, and
little to the purpose about our want of money. Thence homeward, and
called at