Diary, December 1667 | Page 9

and
after dinner, he being gone, I to my chamber again till almost night, and
then took boat, the tide serving, and so to White Hall, where I saw the
Duchesse of York, in a fine dress of second mourning for her mother,
being black, edged with ermine, go to make her first visit to the Queene
since the Duke of York was sick; and by and by, she being returned, the
Queene come and visited her. But it was pretty to observe that Sir W.
Coventry and I, walking an hour and more together in the Matted
Gallery, he observed, and so did I, how the Duchesse, as soon as she
spied him, turned her head a one side. Here he and I walked thus long,
which we have not done a great while before. Our discourse was upon
everything: the unhappiness of having our matters examined by people
that understand them not; that it was better for us in the Navy to have
men that do understand the whole, and that are not passionate; that we
that have taken the most pains are called upon to answer for all crimes,
while those that, like Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes, did sit and do
nothing, do lie still without any trouble; that, if it were to serve the
King and kingdom again in a war, neither of us could do more, though
upon this experience we might do better than we did; that the
commanders, the gentlemen that could never be brought to order, but
undid all, are now the men that find fault and abuse others; that it had
been much better for the King to have given Sir J. Minnes and Sir W.
Batten L1000 a-year to have sat still, than to have had them in his
business this war: that the serving a Prince that minds not his business
is most unhappy for them that serve him well, and an unhappiness so
great that he declares he will never have more to do with a war, under
him. That he hath papers which do flatly contradict the Duke of
Albemarle's Narrative; and that he hath been with the Duke of
Albemarle and shewed him them, to prevent his falling into another
like fault: that the Duke of Albemarle seems to be able to answer them;

but he thinks that the Duke of Albemarle and the Prince are contented
to let their Narratives sleep, they being not only contradictory in some
things (as he observed about the business of the Duke of Albemarle's
being to follow the Prince upon dividing the fleete, in case the enemy
come out), but neither of them to be maintained in others. That the
business the other night of my Lord Anglesey at the Council was
happily got over for my Lord, by his dexterous silencing it, and the rest,
not urging it further; forasmuch as, had the Duke of Buckingham come
in time enough, and had got it by the end, he, would have toused him in
it; Sir W. Coventry telling me that my Lord Anglesey did, with such
impudence, maintain the quarrel against the Commons and some of the
Lords, in the business of my Lord Clarendon, that he believes there are
enough would be glad but of this occasion to be revenged of him. He
tells me that he hears some of the Thomsons are like to be of the
Commission for the Accounts, and Wildman, which he much wonders
at, as having been a false fellow to every body, and in prison most of
the time since the King's coming in. But he do tell me that the House is
in such a condition that nobody can tell what to make of them, and, he
thinks, they were never in before; that every body leads, and nobody
follows; and that he do now think that, since a great many are defeated
in their expectation of being of the Commission, now they would put it
into such hands as it shall get no credit from: for, if they do look to the
bottom and see the King's case, they think they are then bound to give
the King money; whereas, they would be excused from that, and
therefore endeavour to make this business of the Accounts to signify
little. I spoke with him about my Lord Sandwich's business, in which
he is very friendly, and do say that the unhappy business of the prizes is
it that hath brought all this trouble upon him, and the only thing that
made any thing else mentioned, and it is true. So having discoursed
with him, I spent some time with Sir Stephen Fox about the business of
our adjusting the new method of the Excise between the Guards
household