20th.  Up betimes and over the water, and walked to Deptford, where up and down the yarde, and met the two clerks of the Cheques to conclude by our method their callbooks, which we have done to great perfection, and so walked home again, where I found my wife in great pain abed . . . .  I staid and dined by her, and after dinner walked forth, and by water to the Temple, and in Fleet Street bought me a little sword, with gilt handle, cost 23s., and silk stockings to the colour of my riding cloth suit, cost I 5s., and bought me a belt there too, cost 15s., and so calling at my brother’s I find he has got a new maid, very likely girl, I wish he do not play the fool with her.  Thence homewards, and meeting with Mr. Kirton’s kinsman in Paul’s Church Yard, he and I to a coffee-house; where I hear how there had like to have been a surprizall of Dublin by some discontented protestants, and other things of like nature; and it seems the Commissioners have carried themselves so high for the Papists that the others will not endure it.  Hewlett and some others are taken and clapped up; and they say the King hath sent over to dissolve the Parliament there, who went very high against the Commissioners.  Pray God send all well!  Hence home and in comes Captain Ferrers and by and by Mr. Bland to see the and sat talking with me till 9 or to at night, and so good night.  The Captain to bid my wife to his child’s christening.  So my wife being pretty well again and Ashwell there we spent the evening pleasantly, and so to bed.

21st.  Up betimes and to my office, where busy all the morning, and at noon, after a very little dinner, to it again, and by and by, by appointment, our full board met, and Sir Philip Warwick and Sir Robert Long came from my Lord Treasurer to speak with us about the state of the debts of the Navy; and how to settle it, so as to begin upon the new foundation of L200,000 per annum, which the King is now resolved not to exceed.  This discourse done, and things put in a way of doing, they went away, and Captain Holmes being called in he began his high complaint against his Master Cooper, and would have him forthwith discharged.  Which I opposed, not in his defence but for the justice of proceeding not to condemn a man unheard, upon [which] we fell from one word to another that we came to very high terms, such as troubled me, though all and the worst that I ever said was that that was insolently or ill mannerdly spoken.  When he told me that it was well it was here that I said it.  But all the officers, Sir G. Carteret, Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten, and Sir W. Pen cried shame of it.  At last he parted and we resolved to bring the dispute between him and his Master to a trial next week, wherein I shall not at all concern myself in defence of any thing that is unhandsome on the Master’s part nor willingly suffer him to have any wrong.  So we rose and I to my office, troubled though sensible that all the officers are of opinion that he has carried himself very much unbecoming him.  So wrote letters by the post, and home to supper and to bed.