5th.  Up betimes and to my viall awhile, and so to the office, and there sat, and busy all the morning.  So at noon to the Exchange, and so home to dinner, where I met Creed, who dined with me, and after dinner mightily importuned by Captain Hicks, who came to tell my wife the names and story of all the shells, which was a pretty present he made her the other day.  He being gone, Creed, my wife, and I to Cornhill, and after many tryalls bought my wife a chintz, that is, a painted Indian callico, for to line her new study, which is very pretty.  So home with her, and then I away (Creed being gone) to Captain Minors upon Tower Hill, and there, abating only some impertinence of his, I did inform myself well in things relating to the East Indys; both of the country and the disappointment the King met with the last voyage, by the knavery of the Portugall Viceroy, and the inconsiderablenesse of the place of Bombaim,

     [Bombay, which was transferred to the East India Company in 1669. 
     The seat of the Western Presidency of India was removed from Surat
     to Bombay in 1685-87.]

if we had had it.  But, above all things, it seems strange to me that matters should not be understood before they went out; and also that such a thing as this, which was expected to be one of the best parts of the Queen’s portion, should not be better understood; it being, if we had it, but a poor place, and not really so as was described to our King in the draught of it, but a poor little island; whereas they made the King and Lord Chancellor, and other learned men about the King, believe that that, and other islands which are near it, were all one piece; and so the draught was drawn and presented to the King, and believed by the King and expected to prove so when our men came thither; but it is quite otherwise.  Thence to my office, and after several letters writ, home to supper and to bed, and took a pill.  I hear this day that Sir W. Batten was fain to put ashore at Queenborough with my Lady, who has been so sick she swears never to go to sea again.  But it happens well that Holmes is come home into the Downes, where he will meet my Lady, and it may be do her more good than she looked for.  He brings news of the peace between Tangier and the Moors, but the particulars I know not.  He is come but yesterday.

6th (Lord’s day).  My pill I took last night worked very well, and I lay long in bed and sweat to get away the itching all about my body from head to foot, which is beginning again as it did the last winter, and I find after I am up that it is abated.  I staid at home all day and my wife also, whom, God forgive me, I staid along with me for fear of her seeing of Pembleton.  But she and I entertained one another all day long with great pleasure, contriving about my wife’s closet and the bedchamber, whither we intend to go up she and I to-day.  We dined alone and supped also at night, my brother John with us, and so to prayers and to bed.