Diary, 1663 N.S. Complete | Page 8

from her, and tore it, and withal took her other bundle of
papers from her, and leapt out of the bed and in my shirt clapped them
into the pocket of my breeches, that she might not get them from me,
and having got on my stockings and breeches and gown, I pulled them
out one by one and tore them all before her face, though it went against
my heart to do it, she crying and desiring me not to do it, but such was
my passion and trouble to see the letters of my love to her, and my Will
wherein I had given her all I have in the world, when I went to sea with
my Lord Sandwich, to be joyned with a paper of so much disgrace to
me and dishonour, if it should have been found by any body. Having
torn them all, saving a bond of my uncle Robert's, which she hath long
had in her hands, and our marriage license, and the first letter that ever
I sent her when I was her servant,
[The usual word at this time for a lover. We have continued the
correlative term "mistress," but rejected that of "servant."]

I took up the pieces and carried them into my chamber, and there, after
many disputes with myself whether I should burn them or no, and
having picked up, the pieces of the paper she read to-day, and of my
Will which I tore, I burnt all the rest, and so went out to my office
troubled in mind. Hither comes Major Tolhurst, one of my old
acquaintance in Cromwell's time, and sometimes of our clubb, to see
me, and I could do no less than carry him to the Mitre, and having sent
for Mr. Beane, a merchant, a neighbour of mine, we sat and talked,
Tolhurst telling me the manner of their collierys in the north. We broke
up, and I home to dinner. And to see my folly, as discontented as I am,
when my wife came I could not forbear smiling all dinner till she began
to speak bad words again, and then I began to be angry again, and so to
my office. Mr. Bland came in the evening to me hither, and sat talking
to me about many things of merchandise, and I should be very happy in
his discourse, durst I confess my ignorance to him, which is not so fit
for me to do. There coming a letter to me from Mr. Pierce, the surgeon,
by my desire appointing his and Dr. Clerke's coming to dine with me
next Monday, I went to my wife and agreed upon matters, and at last
for my honour am forced to make her presently a new Moyre gown to
be seen by Mrs. Clerke, which troubles me to part with so much money,
but, however, it sets my wife and I to friends again, though I and she
never were so heartily angry in our lives as to-day almost, and I doubt
the heartburning will not [be] soon over, and the truth is I am sorry for
the tearing of so many poor loving letters of mine from sea and
elsewhere to her. So to my office again, and there the Scrivener brought
me the end of the manuscript which I am going to get together of things
of the Navy, which pleases me much. So home, and mighty friends
with my wife again, and so to bed.
10th. Up and to the office. From thence, before we sat, Sir W. Pen sent
for me to his bedside to talk (indeed to reproach me with my not
owning to Sir J. Minnes that he had my advice in the blocking up of the
garden door the other day, which is now by him out of fear to Sir J.
Minnes opened again), to which I answered him so indifferently that I
think he and I shall be at a distance, at least to one another, better than
ever we did and love one another less, which for my part I think I need
not care for. So to the office, and sat till noon, then rose and to dinner,
and then to the office again, where Mr. Creed sat with me till late

talking very good discourse, as he is full of it, though a cunning knave
in his heart, at least not to be too much trusted, till Sir J. Minnes came
in, which at last he did, and so beyond my expectation he was willing
to sign his accounts, notwithstanding all his objections, which really
were very material, and yet how like a doting coxcomb he signs the
accounts without the least satisfaction, for which we both sufficiently
laughed at him and