18th.  Up, and to see Sir W. Coventry, and walked with him a good while in the Stone Walk:  and brave discourse about my Lord Chancellor, and his ill managements and mistakes, and several things of the Navy, and thence to the office, where we sat all the morning, and so home to dinner, where my wife mighty finely dressed, by a maid that she hath taken, and is to come to her when Jane goes; and the same she the other day told me of, to be so handsome.  I therefore longed to see her, but did not till after dinner, that my wife and I going by coach, she went with us to Holborne, where we set her down.  She is a mighty proper maid, and pretty comely, but so so; but hath a most pleasing tone of voice, and speaks handsomely, but hath most great hands, and I believe ugly; but very well dressed, and good clothes, and the maid I believe will please me well enough.  Thence to visit Ned Pickering and his lady, and Creed and his wife, but the former abroad, and the latter out of town, gone to my Lady Pickering’s in Northamptonshire, upon occasion of the late death of their brother, Oliver Pickering, a youth, that is dead of the smallpox.  So my wife and I to Dancre’s to see the pictures; and thence to Hyde Park, the first time we were there this year, or ever in our own coach, where with mighty pride rode up and down, and many coaches there; and I thought our horses and coach as pretty as any there, and observed so to be by others.  Here staid till night, and so home, and to the office, where busy late, and so home to supper and to bed, with great content, but much business in my head of the office, which troubles me.

19th.  Up, and by water to White Hall, there to the Lords of the Treasury, and did some business, and here Sir Thomas Clifford did speak to me, as desirous that I would some time come and confer with him about the Navy, which I am glad of, but will take the direction of the Duke of York before I do it, though I would be glad to do something to secure myself, if I could, in my employment.  Thence to the plaisterer’s, and took my face, and my Lord Duke of Albemarle’s, home with me by coach, they being done to my mind; and mighty glad I am of understanding this way of having the pictures of any friends.  At home to dinner, where Mr. Sheres dined with us, but after dinner I left him and my wife, and with Commissioner Middleton and Kempthorne to a Court-martiall, to which, by virtue of my late Captainship, I am called, the first I was ever at; where many Commanders, and Kempthorne president.  Here was tried a difference between Sir L. Van Hemskirke, the Dutch Captain who commands “The Nonsuch,” built by his direction, and his Lieutenant; a drunken kind of silly business.  We ordered the Lieutenant to ask him pardon, and have resolved to lay before the Duke of York what concerns the Captain, which was striking of his Lieutenant and challenging him to fight, which comes not within any article of the laws martiall.  But upon discourse the other day with