stamp, and fret, for not being able to get their horse over a stile and ditch, one of them swearing and cursing most bitterly; and I would fain, in revenge, have persuaded him to have drove his horse through the ditch, by which I believe he would have stuck there.  But the horse would not be drove, and so they were forced to go back again, and so I walked away homeward, and there reading all the evening, and so to bed.  This afternoon my Lord Anglesey tells us that it is voted in Council to have a fleete of 50 ships out; but it is only a disguise for the Parliament to get some money by; but it will not take, I believe, and if it did, I do not think it will be such as he will get any of, nor such as will enable us to set out such a fleete.

16th.  Up, after talking with my wife with pleasure, about her learning on the flageolet a month or two again this winter, and all the rest of the year her painting, which I do love, and so to the office, where sat all the morning, and here Lord Anglesey tells us again that a fleete is to be set out; and that it is generally, he hears, said, that it is but a Spanish rhodomontado; and that he saying so just now to the Duke of Albemarle, who come to town last night, after the thing was ordered, he told him a story of two seamen:  one wished all the guns of the ship were his, and that they were silver; and says the other, “You are a fool, for, if you can have it for wishing, why do you not wish them gold?”—­“So,” says he, “if a rhodomontado will do any good, why do you not say 100 ships?” And it is true; for the Dutch and French are said to make such preparations as 50 sail will do no good.  At noon home to dinner with my gang of clerks, in whose society I am mightily pleased, and mightily with Mr. Gibson’s talking;

[Richard Gibson, so frequently noticed by Pepys, was a clerk in the Navy Office.  His collection of papers relating to the navy of England A.D. 1650-1702, compiled, as he states, from the Admiralty books in the Navy Office, are in the British Museum.—­B.]

he telling me so many good stories relating to the warr and practices of commanders, which I will find a time to recollect; and he will be an admirable help to my writing a history of the Navy, if ever I do.  So to the office, where busy all the afternoon and evening, and then home.  My work this night with my clerks till midnight at the office was to examine my list of ships I am making for myself and their dimensions, and to see how it agrees or differs from other lists, and I do find so great a difference between them all that I am at a loss which to take, and therefore think mine to be as much depended upon as any I can make out of them all.  So little care there has been to this day to know or keep any history of the Navy.

17th.  Up, and by coach to White Hall to attend the Council there, and here I met first by Mr. Castle the shipwright, whom I met there, and then from the whole house the discourse of the duell yesterday between the Duke of Buckingham, Holmes, and one Jenkins, on one side, and my Lord of Shrewsbury, Sir John Talbot, and one Bernard Howard, on the other side:  and all about my Lady Shrewsbury,