31st.  Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and at noon home to dinner, where Creed came and dined with me, and after dinner he and I upstairs, and I showed him my velvet cloake and other things of clothes, that I have lately bought, which he likes very well, and I took his opinion as to some things of clothes, which I purpose to wear, being resolved to go a little handsomer than I have hitherto.  Thence to the office; where busy till night, and then to prepare my monthly account, about which I staid till 10 or 11 o’clock at night, and to my great sorrow find myself L43 worse than I was the last month, which was then L760, and now it is but L717.  But it hath chiefly arisen from my layings-out in clothes for myself and wife; viz., for her about L12, and for myself L55, or thereabouts; having made myself a velvet cloake, two new cloth suits, black, plain both; a new shagg

     [Shag was a stuff similar to plush.  In 1703 a youth who was missing
     is described in an advertisement as wearing “red shag breeches,
     striped with black stripes.” (Planche’s “Cyclopxdia of Costume “).]

gowne, trimmed with gold buttons and twist, with a new hat, and, silk tops for my legs, and many other things, being resolved henceforward to go like myself.  And also two perriwiggs, one whereof costs me L3, and the other 40s.—­I have worn neither yet, but will begin next week, God willing.  So that I hope I shall not need now to lay out more money a great while, I having laid out in clothes for myself and wife, and for her closett and other things without, these two months, this and the last, besides household expenses of victuals, &c., above L110.  But I hope I shall with more comfort labour to get more, and with better successe than when, for want of clothes, I was forced to sneake like a beggar.  Having done this I went home, and after supper to bed, my mind being eased in knowing my condition, though troubled to think that I have been forced to spend so much.

Thus I end this month worth L717, or thereabouts, with a good deal of good goods more than I had, and a great deal of new and good clothes.  My greatest trouble and my wife’s is our family, mighty out of order by this fellow Will’s corrupting the mayds by his idle talke and carriage, which we are going to remove by hastening him out of the house, which his uncle Blackburne is upon doing, and I am to give him L20 per annum toward his maintenance.  The Queene continues lightheaded, but in hopes to recover.  The plague is much in Amsterdam, and we in fears of it here, which God defend.

     [Defend is used in the sense of forbid.  It is a Gallicism from the
     French “defendre.”]