Diary, Apr/May 1664 | Page 4

entire meal of them. D.W.]

THE DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS M.A. F.R.S.
CLERK OF THE ACTS AND SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY
TRANSCRIBED FROM THE SHORTHAND MANUSCRIPT IN
THE PEPYSIAN LIBRARY MAGDALENE COLLEGE
CAMBRIDGE BY THE REV. MYNORS BRIGHT M.A. LATE

FELLOW AND PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE
(Unabridged)
WITH LORD BRAYBROOKE'S NOTES
EDITED WITH ADDITIONS BY
HENRY B. WHEATLEY F.S.A.

DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS. APRIL & MAY 1664
April 1st. Up and to my office, where busy till noon, and then to the
'Change, where I found all the merchants concerned with the presenting
their complaints to the Committee of Parliament appointed to receive
them this afternoon against the Dutch. So home to dinner, and thence
by coach, setting my wife down at the New Exchange, I to White Hall;
and coming too soon for the Tangier Committee walked to Mr.
Blagrave for a song. I left long ago there, and here I spoke with his
kinswoman, he not being within, but did not hear her sing, being not
enough acquainted with her, but would be glad to have her, to come
and be at my house a week now and then. Back to White Hall, and in
the Gallery met the Duke of Yorke (I also saw the Queene going to the
Parke, and her Mayds of Honour: she herself looks ill, and methinks
Mrs. Stewart is grown fatter, and not so fair as she was); and he called
me to him, and discoursed a good while with me; and after he was gone,
twice or thrice staid and called me again to him, the whole length of the
house: and at last talked of the Dutch; and I perceive do much wish that
the Parliament will find reason to fall out with them. He gone, I by and
by found that the Committee of Tangier met at the Duke of Albemarle's,
and so I have lost my labour. So with Creed to the 'Change, and there
took up my wife and left him, and we two home, and I to walk in the
garden with W. Howe, whom we took up, he having been to see us, he
tells me how Creed has been questioned before the Council about a
letter that has been met with, wherein he is mentioned by some
fanatiques as a serviceable friend to them, but he says he acquitted
himself well in it, but, however, something sticks against him, he says,
with my Lord, at which I am not very sorry, for I believe he is a false
fellow. I walked with him to Paul's, he telling me how my Lord is little
at home, minds his carding and little else, takes little notice of any body;
but that he do not think he is displeased, as I fear, with me, but is
strange to all, which makes me the less troubled. So walked back home,

and late at the office. So home and to bed. This day Mrs. Turner did
lend me, as a rarity, a manuscript of one Mr. Wells, writ long ago,
teaching the method of building a ship, which pleases me mightily. I
was at it to-night, but durst not stay long at it, I being come to have a
great pain and water in my eyes after candle-light.

2nd. Up and to my office, and afterwards sat, where great contest with
Sir W. Batten and Mr. Wood, and that doating fool Sir J. Minnes, that
says whatever Sir W. Batten says, though never minding whether to the
King's profit or not. At noon to the Coffee-house, where excellent
discourse with Sir W. Petty, who proposed it as a thing that is truly
questionable, whether there really be any difference between waking
and dreaming, that it is hard not only to tell how we know when we do
a thing really or in a dream, but also to know what the difference [is]
between one and the other. Thence to the 'Change, but having at this
discourse long afterwards with Sir Thomas Chamberlin, who tells me
what I heard from others, that the complaints of most Companies were
yesterday presented to the Committee of Parliament against the Dutch,
excepting that of the East India, which he tells me was because they
would not be said to be the first and only cause of a warr with Holland,
and that it is very probable, as well as most necessary, that we fall out
with that people. I went to the 'Change, and there found most people
gone, and so home to dinner, and thence to Sir W. Warren's, and with
him past the whole afternoon, first looking over two ships' of Captain
Taylor's and Phin. Pett's now in building, and am resolved to learn
something of the art, for I