now night, to White Hall, and there, in the Duchess’s chamber, do find the Duke of York; and, upon my offer to speak with him, he did come to me, and withdrew to his closet, and there did hear and approve my paper of the Administration of the Navy, only did bid me alter these words, “upon the rupture between the late King and the Parliament,” to these, “the beginning of the late Rebellion;” giving it me as but reason to shew that it was with the Rebellion that the Navy was put by out of its old good course, into that of a Commission.  Having done this, we fell to other talk; he with great confidence telling me how matters go among our adversaries, in reference to the Navy, and that he thinks they do begin to flag; but then, beginning to talk in general of the excellency of old constitutions, he did bring out of his cabinet, and made me read it, an extract out of a book of my late Lord of Northumberland’s, so prophetic of the:  business of Chatham, as is almost miraculous.  I did desire, and he did give it me to copy out, which pleased me mightily, and so, it being late, I away and to my wife, and by hackney; home, and there, my eyes being weary with reading so much:  but yet not so much as I was afeard they would, we home to supper and to bed.

18th (Lord’s day).  Up, and all the morning till 2 o’clock at my Office, with Gibson and Tom, about drawing up fair my discourse of the Administration of the Navy, and then, Mr. Spong being come to dine with me, I in to dinner, and then out to my Office again, to examine the fair draught; and so borrowing Sir J. Minnes’s coach, he going with Colonel Middleton, I to White Hall, where we all met and did sign it and then to my Lord Arlington’s, where the King, and the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert, as also Ormond and the two Secretaries, with my Lord Ashly and Sir T. Clifton was.  And there, by and by, being called in, Mr. Williamson did read over our paper, which was in a letter to the Duke of York, bound up in a book with the Duke of York’s Book of Instructions.  He read it well; and, after read, we were bid to withdraw, nothing being at all said to it.  And by and by we were called in again, and nothing said to that business; but another begun, about the state of this year’s action, and our wants of money, as I had stated the same lately to our Treasurers; which I was bid, and did largely, and with great content, open.  And having so done, we all withdrew, and left them to debate our supply of money; to which, being called in, and referred to attend on the Lords of the Treasury, we all departed.  And I only staid in the House till the Council rose; and then to the Duke of York, who in the Duchess’s chamber come to me, and told me that the book was there left with my Lord Arlington, for any of the Lords to view that had a mind, and to prepare and present to the King what they had to say in writing, to any part of it, which is all we can desire, and so that rested.  The Duke of York then went to other talk;