3rd.  Up with Sir J. Minnes, by coach, to St. James’s; and there all the newes now of very hot preparations for the Dutch:  and being with the Duke, he told us he was resolved to make a tripp himself, and that Sir W. Pen should go in the same ship with him.  Which honour, God forgive me!  I could grudge him, for his knavery and dissimulation, though I do not envy much the having the same place myself.  Talke also of great haste in the getting out another fleete, and building some ships; and now it is likely we have put one another by each other’s dalliance past a retreate.  Thence with our heads full of business we broke up, and I to my barber’s, and there only saw Jane and stroked her under the chin, and away to the Exchange, and there long about several businesses, hoping to get money by them, and thence home to dinner and there found Hawly.  But meeting Bagwell’s wife at the office before I went home I took her into the office and there kissed her only.  She rebuked me for doing it, saying that did I do so much to many bodies else it would be a stain to me.  But I do not see but she takes it well enough, though in the main I believe she is very honest.  So after some kind discourse we parted, and I home to dinner, and after dinner down to Deptford, where I found Mr. Coventry, and there we made, an experiment of Holland’s and our cordage, and ours outdid it a great deale, as my book of observations tells particularly.  Here we were late, and so home together by water, and I to my office, where late, putting things in order.  Mr. Bland came this night to me to take his leave of me, he going to Tangier, wherein I wish him good successe.  So home to supper and to bed, my mind troubled at the businesses I have to do, that I cannot mind them as I ought to do and get money, and more that I have neglected my frequenting and seeming more busy publicly than I have done of late in this hurry of business, but there is time left to recover it, and I trust in God I shall.

4th.  Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and this morning Sir W. Pen went to Chatham to look:  after the ships now going out thence, and particularly that wherein the Duke and himself go.  He took Sir G. Ascue with:  him, whom, I believe, he hath brought into play.  At noon to the ’Change and thence home, where I found my aunt James and the two she joyces.  They dined and were merry with us.  Thence after dinner to a play, to see “The Generall;” which is so dull and so ill-acted, that I think it is the worst.  I ever saw or heard in all my days.  I happened to sit near; to Sir Charles Sidly; who I find a very witty man, and he did at every line take notice of the dullness of the poet and badness of the action, that most pertinently; which I was mightily taken with; and among others where by Altemire’s command Clarimont, the Generall, is commanded to rescue his Rivall, whom she loved, Lucidor, he, after a great deal of demurre, broke out; “Well, I’le