Diary, August 1665 | Page 8

11th. Up, and all day long finishing and writing over my will twice, for
my father and my wife, only in the morning a pleasant rencontre

happened in having a young married woman brought me by her father,
old Delkes, that carries pins always in his mouth, to get her husband off
that he should not go to sea, 'une contre pouvait avoir done any cose
cum else, but I did nothing, si ni baisser her'. After they were gone my
mind run upon having them called back again, and I sent a messenger
to Blackwall, but he failed. So I lost my expectation. I to the Exchequer,
about striking new tallys, and I find the Exchequer, by proclamation,
removing to Nonesuch.--[Nonsuch Palace, near Epsom, where the
Exchequer money was kept during the time of the plague.]--Back again
and at my papers, and putting up my books into chests, and settling my
house and all things in the best and speediest order I can, lest it should
please God to take me away, or force me to leave my house. Late up at
it, and weary and full of wind, finding perfectly that so long as I keepe
myself in company at meals and do there eat lustily (which I cannot do
alone, having no love to eating, but my mind runs upon my business), I
am as well as can be, but when I come to be alone, I do not eat in time,
nor enough, nor with any good heart, and I immediately begin to be full
of wind, which brings my pain, till I come to fill my belly a-days again,
then am presently well.

12th. The office now not sitting, but only hereafter on Thursdays at the
office, I within all the morning about my papers and setting things still
in order, and also much time in settling matters with Dr. Twisden. At
noon am sent for by Sir G. Carteret, to meet him and my Lord
Hinchingbroke at Deptford, but my Lord did not come thither, he
having crossed the river at Gravesend to Dagenhams, whither I dare not
follow him, they being afeard of me; but Sir G. Carteret says, he is a
most sweet youth in every circumstance. Sir G. Carteret being in haste
of going to the Duke of Albemarle and the Archbishop, he was pettish,
and so I could not fasten any discourse, but take another time. So he
gone, I down to Greenwich and sent away the Bezan, thinking to go
with my wife to-night to come back again to-morrow night to the
Soveraigne at the buoy off the Nore. Coming back to Deptford, old
Bagwell walked a little way with me, and would have me in to his
daughter's, and there he being gone 'dehors, ego had my volunte de su
hiza'. Eat and drank and away home, and after a little at the office to

my chamber to put more things still in order, and late to bed. The
people die so, that now it seems they are fain to carry the dead to be
buried by day-light, the nights not sufficing to do it in. And my Lord
Mayor commands people to be within at nine at night all, as they say,
that the sick may have liberty to go abroad for ayre. There is one also
dead out of one of our ships at Deptford, which troubles us mightily;
the Providence fire-ship, which was just fitted to go to sea. But they tell
me to-day no more sick on board. And this day W. Bodham tells me
that one is dead at Woolwich, not far from the Rope-yard. I am told,
too, that a wife of one of the groomes at Court is dead at Salsbury; so
that the King and Queene are speedily to be all gone to Milton. God
preserve us!

13th (Lord's day). Up betimes and to my chamber, it being a very wet
day all day, and glad am I that we did not go by water to see "The
Soveraigne"
["The Sovereign of the Seas" was built at Woolwich in 1637 of timber
which had been stripped of its bark while growing in the spring, and
not felled till the second autumn afterwards; and it is observed by Dr.
Plot ("Phil. Trans." for 1691), in his discourse on the most seasonable
time for felling timber, written by the advice of Pepys, that after
forty-seven years, "all the ancient timber then remaining in her, it was
no easy matter to drive a nail into it" ("Quarterly Review," vol. viii., p.
35).--B.]
to-day, as I intended, clearing all matters in packing up my papers and
books, and giving instructions in writing to my executors, thereby
perfecting the whole business of my will, to