Commissioners of the Treasury to me for not paying
of pensions, and with so much reason, and eloquence
so natural, was admirable. And another thing,
about his pressing for the reduction of the charge
of Tangier, which they would have put off to another
time; “But,” says he, “the King suffers
so much by the putting off of the consideration of
reductions of charge, that he is undone; and therefore
I do pray you, sir, to his Royal Highness, that when
any thing offers of the kind, you will not let it
escape you.” Here was a great bundle of
letters brought hither, sent up from sea, from a vessel
of ours that hath taken them after they had been flung
over by a Dutchman; wherein, among others, the Duke
of York did read the superscription of one to De Witt,
thus “To the most wise, foreseeing and discreet,
These, &c.;” which, I thought with myself, I
could have been glad might have been duly directed
to any one of them at the table, though the greatest
men in this kingdom. The Duke of York, the Lord
Chancellor, my Lord Duke of Albemarle, Arlington,
Ashley, Peterborough, and Coventry (the best of them
all for parts), I perceive they do all profess their
expectation of a peace, and that suddenly, and do
advise of things accordingly, and do all speak of
it (and expressly, I remember, the Duke of Albemarle),
saying that they hoped for it. Letters were
read at the table from Tangier that Guiland is wholly
lost, and that he do offer Arzill to us to deliver
it to us. But Sir W. Coventry did declare his
opinion that we should have nothing to do with it,
and said that if Tangier were offered us now, as the
King’s condition is, he would advise against
the taking it; saying, that the King’s charge
is too great, and must be brought down, it being,
like the fire of this City, never to be mastered till
you have brought it under you; and that these places
abroad are but so much charge to the King, and we
do rather hitherto strive to greaten them than lessen
them; and then the King is forced to part with them,
“as,” says he, “he did with Dunkirke,”
by my Lord Tiviott’s making it so chargeable
to the King as he did that, and would have done Tangier,
if he had lived: I perceive he is the only man
that do seek the King’s profit, and is bold to
deliver what he thinks on every occasion. Having
broke up here, I away with Mr. Gawden in his coach
to the ’Change, and there a, little, and then
home and dined, and then to the office, and by and
by with my wife to White Hall (she to Unthanke’s),
and there met Creed and did a little business at the
Treasury chamber, and then to walk in Westminster
Hall an hour or two, with much pleasure reflecting
upon our discourse to-day at the Tangier meeting, and
crying up the worth of Sir W. Coventry. Creed
tells me of the fray between the Duke of Buckingham
at the Duke’s playhouse the last Saturday (and
it is the first day I have heard that they have acted
at either the King’s or Duke’s houses
this month or six weeks) and Henry Killigrew, whom