possible for the King from the beginning.  But discontented as he is, yet he never knew a Session of Parliament but he hath done some good deed for the King before it rose.  I told him the passage Cocke told me of his having begged a brace of bucks of the Lord Arlington for him, and when it come to him, he sent it back again.  Sir W. Coventry told me, it is much to be pitied that the King should lose the service of a man so able and faithfull; and that he ought to be brought over, but that it is always observed, that by bringing over one discontented man, you raise up three in his room; which is a State lesson I never knew before.  But when others discover your fear, and that discontent procures favour, they will be discontented too, and impose on you.  Thence to White Hall and got a coach and home, and there did business late, and so home and set up my little books of one of my presses come home gilt, which pleases me mightily, and then to bed.  This morning my wife told me of a fine gentlewoman my Lady Pen tells her of, for L20 per annum, that sings, dances, plays on four or five instruments and many other fine things, which pleases me mightily:  and she sent to have her see her, which she did this afternoon; but sings basely, and is a tawdry wench that would take L8, but [neither] my wife nor I think her fit to come.

7th (Lord’s day).  Up, and after visiting my father in his chamber, to church, and then home to dinner.  Little Michell and his wife come to dine with us, which they did, and then presently after dinner I with Sir J. Minnes to White Hall, where met by Sir W. Batten and Lord Bruncker, to attend the King and Duke of York at the Cabinet; but nobody had determined what to speak of, but only in general to ask for money.  So I was forced immediately to prepare in my mind a method of discoursing.  And anon we were called in to the Green Room, where the King, Duke of York, Prince Rupert, Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, Duke of Albemarle, [Sirs] G. Carteret, W. Coventry, Morrice.  Nobody beginning, I did, and made a current, and I thought a good speech, laying open the ill state of the Navy:  by the greatness of the debt; greatness of work to do against next yeare; the time and materials it would take; and our incapacity, through a total want of money.  I had no sooner done, but Prince Rupert rose up and told the King in a heat, that whatever the gentleman had said, he had brought home his fleete in as good a condition as ever any fleete was brought home; that twenty boats would be as many as the fleete would want:  and all the anchors and cables left in the storm might be taken up again.  This arose from my saying, among other things we had to do, that the fleete was come in—­the greatest fleete that ever his Majesty had yet together, and that in as bad condition as the enemy or weather could put it; and to use Sir W. Pen’s words, who is upon the place taking a survey, he dreads the reports he is to receive from the Surveyors of its defects.  I therefore did