office.  This day I did get a list of the fourteen particular miscarriages which are already before the Committee to be examined; wherein, besides two or three that will concern this Office much, there are those of the prizes, and that of Bergen, and not following the Dutch ships, against my Lord Sandwich; that, I fear, will ruine him, unless he hath very good luck, or they may be in better temper before he can come to be charged:  but my heart is full of fear for him and his family.  I hear that they do prosecute the business against my Lord Chief Justice Keeling with great severity.

22nd.  Slept but ill all the last part of the night, for fear of this day’s success in Parliament:  therefore up, and all of us all the morning close, till almost two o’clock, collecting all we had to say and had done from the beginning, touching the safety of the River Medway and Chatham.  And, having done this, and put it into order, we away, I not having time to eat my dinner; and so all in my Lord Bruncker’s coach, that is to say, Bruncker, W. Pen, T. Harvy, and myself, talking of the other great matter with which they charge us, that is, of discharging men by ticket, in order to our defence in case that should be asked.  We come to the Parliament-door, and there, after a little waiting till the Committee was sat, we were, the House being very full, called in:  Sir W. Pen went in and sat as a Member; and my Lord Bruncker would not at first go in, expecting to have a chair set for him, and his brother had bid him not go in, till he was called for; but, after a few words, I had occasion to mention him, and so he was called in, but without any more chair or respect paid him than myself:  and so Bruncker, and T. Harvy, and I, were there to answer:  and I had a chair brought me to lean my books upon:  and so did give them such an account, in a series of the whole business that had passed the Office touching the matter, and so answered all questions given me about it, that I did not perceive but they were fully satisfied with me and the business as to our Office:  and then Commissioner Pett (who was by at all my discourse, and this held till within an hour after candlelight, for I had candles brought in to read my papers by) was to answer for himself, we having lodged all matters with him for execution.  But, Lord! what a tumultuous thing this Committee is, for all the reputation they have of a great council, is a strange consideration; there being as impertinent questions, and as disorderly proposed, as any man could make.  But Commissioner Pett, of all men living, did make the weakest defence for himself:  nothing to the purpose, nor to satisfaction, nor certain; but sometimes one thing and sometimes another, sometimes for himself and sometimes against him; and his greatest failure was, that I observed, from his [not] considering whether the question propounded was his part to answer or no, and the thing to be done was his work to do:  the want of which distinction will overthrow him;