e back-stairs, I
did hear some lacquies speaking of sad newes come to Court, saying, that
hardly anybody in the Court but do look as if he cried, and would not go
into the house for fear of being seen, but slunk out and got into a coach,
and to The. Turner's to Sir W. Turner's, where I met Roger Pepys, newly
come out of the country. He and I talked aside a little, he offering a
match for Pall, one Barnes, of whom we shall talk more the next time. His
father married a Pepys; in discourse, he told me further that his
grandfather, my great grandfather, had L800 per annum, in Queen
Elizabeth's time, in the very town of Cottenham; and that we did certainly
come out of Scotland with the Abbot of Crowland. More talk I had, and
shall have more with him, but my mind is so sad and head full of this ill
news that I cannot now set it down. A short visit here, my wife coming to
me, and took leave of The., and so home, where all our hearts do now ake;
for the newes is true, that the Dutch have broke the chaine and burned our
ships, and particularly "The Royal Charles,"

[Vandervelde's drawings of the conflagration of the English fleet,
made by him on the spot, are in the British Museum.--B.]

other particulars I know not, but most sad to be sure. And, the truth is,
I do fear so much that the whole kingdom is undone, that I do this night
resolve to study with my father and wife what to do with the little that I
have in money by me, for I give [up] all the rest that I have in the
King's hands, for Tangier, for lost. So God help us! and God knows what
disorders we may fall into, and whether any violence on this office, or
perhaps some severity on our persons, as being reckoned by the silly
people, or perhaps may, by policy of State, be thought fit to be condemned
by the King and Duke of York, and so put to trouble; though, God knows! I
have, in my own person, done my full duty, I am sure. So having with much
ado finished my business at the office, I home to consider with my father
and wife of things, and then to supper and to bed with a heavy heart. The
manner of my advising this night with my father was, I took him and my
wife up to her chamber, and shut the door; and there told them the sad
state of the times how we are like to be all undone; that I do fear some
violence will be offered to this office, where all I have in the world is;
and resolved upon sending it away--sometimes into the country--sometimes
my fathe