hearts.  Here I saw shops now come to be in this Exchange, and met little Batelier, who sits here but at L3 per annum, whereas he sat at the other at L100, which he says he believes will prove of as good account to him now as the other did at that rent.  From the ’Change to Captain Cocke’s, and there, by agreement, dined, and there was Charles Porter, Temple, Fern, Debasty, whose bad English and pleasant discourses was exceeding good entertainment, Matt.  Wren, Major Cooper, and myself, mighty merry and pretty discourse.  They talked for certain, that now the King do follow Mrs. Stewart wholly, and my Lady Castlemayne not above once a week; that the Duke of York do not haunt my Lady Denham so much; that she troubles him with matters of State, being of my Lord Bristoll’s faction, and that he avoids; that she is ill still.  After dinner I away to the office, where we sat late upon Mr. Gawden’s accounts, Sir J. Minnes being gone home sick.  I late at the office, and then home to supper and to bed, being mightily troubled with a pain in the small of my back, through cold, or (which I think most true) my straining last night to get open my plate chest, in such pain all night I could not turn myself in my bed.  Newes this day from Brampton, of Mr. Ensum, my sister’s sweetheart, being dead:  a clowne.

13th.  Up, and to the office, where we sat.  At noon to the ’Change and there met Captain Cocke, and had a second time his direction to bespeak L100 of plate, which I did at Sir R. Viner’s, being twelve plates more, and something else I have to choose.  Thence home to dinner, and there W. Hewer dined with me, and showed me a Gazette, in April last, which I wonder should never be remembered by any body, which tells how several persons were then tried for their lives, and were found guilty of a design of killing the King and destroying the Government; and as a means to it, to burn the City; and that the day intended for the plot was the 3rd of last September.

[The “Gazette” of April 23rd-26th, 1666, which contains the following remarkable passage:  “At the Sessions in the Old Bailey, John Rathbone, an old army colonel, William Saunders, Henry Tucker, Thomas Flint, Thomas Evans, John Myles, Will.  Westcot, and John Cole, officers or soldiers in the late Rebellion, were indicted for conspiring the death of his Majesty and the overthrow of the Government.  Having laid their plot and contrivance for the surprisal of the Tower, the killing his Grace the Lord General, Sir John Robinson, Lieutenant of the Tower, and Sir Richard Brown; and then to have declared for an equal division of lands, &c.  The better to effect this hellish design, the City was to have been fired, and the portcullis let down to keep out all assistance; and the Horse Guards to have been surprised in the inns where they were quartered, several ostlers having been gained for that purpose.  The Tower was accordingly viewed, and its surprise ordered by boats over the moat, and from thence