7th.  Up and with Sir W. Batten to White Hall, where mighty thrusting about the Duke now upon his going.  We were with him long.  He advised us to follow our business close, and to be directed in his absence by the Committee of the Councell for the Navy.  By and by a meeting of the Fishery, where the Duke was, but in such haste, and things looked so superficially over, that I had not a fit opportunity to propose my paper that I wrote yesterday, but I had chewed it to Mr. Gray and Wren before, who did like it most highly, as they said, and I think they would not dissemble in that manner in a business of this nature, but I see the greatest businesses are done so superficially that I wonder anything succeeds at all among us, that is publique.  Thence somewhat vexed to see myself frustrated in the good I hoped to have done and a little reputation to have gained, and thence to my barber’s, but Jane not being in the way I to my Lady Sandwich’s, and there met my wife and dined, but I find that I dine as well myself, that is, as neatly, and my meat as good and well-dressed, as my good Lady do, in the absence of my Lord.  Thence by water I to my barber’s again, and did meet in the street my Jane, but could not talk with her, but only a word or two, and so by coach called my wife, and home, where at my office late, and then, it being washing day, to supper and to bed.

8th.  Up and to the office, where by and by Mr. Coventry come, and after doing a little business, took his leave of us, being to go to sea with the Duke to-morrow.  At noon, I and Sir J. Minnes and Lord Barkeley (who with Sir J. Duncum, and Mr. Chichly, are made Masters of the Ordnance), to the office of the Ordnance, to discourse about wadding for guns.  Thence to dinner, all of us to the Lieutenant’s of the Tower; where a good dinner, but disturbed in the middle of it by the King’s coming into the Tower:  and so we broke up, and to him, and went up and down the store-houses and magazines; which are, with the addition of the new great store-house, a noble sight.  He gone, I to my office, where Bagwell’s wife staid for me, and together with her a good while, to meet again shortly.  So all the afternoon at my office till late, and then to bed, joyed in my love and ability to follow my business.  This day, Mr. Lever sent my wife a pair of silver candlesticks, very pretty ones.  The first man that ever presented me, to whom I have not only done little service, but apparently did him the greatest disservice in his business of accounts, as Purser-Generall, of any man at the board.

9th.  Called up, as I had appointed, by H. Russell, between two and three o’clock, and I and my boy Tom by water with a gally down to the Hope, it being a fine starry night.  Got thither by eight o’clock, and there, as expected, found the Charles, her mainmast setting.  Commissioner Pett aboard.  I up and down to see the ship I was so well acquainted with, and a great worke it is, the setting so great