Diary, January 1667/68 | Page 7

there do
find that the Council hath altered its times of sitting to the mornings,
and so I lost my labour, and back again by coach presently round by the
city wall, it being dark, and so home, and there to the office, where till
midnight with Mr. Willson and my people to go through with the
Victualler's contract and the considerations about the new one, and so
home to supper and to bed, thinking my time very well spent.

4th. Up, and there to the office, where we sat all the morning; at noon
home to dinner, where my clerks and Mr. Clerke the sollicitor with me,
and dinner being done I to the office again, where all the afternoon till
late busy, and then home with my mind pleased at the pleasure of

despatching my business, and so to supper and to bed, my thoughts full,
how to order our design of having some dancing at our house on
Monday next, being Twelfth-day. It seems worth remembering that this
day I did hear my Lord Anglesey at the table, speaking touching this
new Act for Accounts, say that the House of Lords did pass it because
it was a senseless, impracticable, ineffectual, and foolish Act; and that
my Lord Ashly having shown this that it was so to the House of Lords,
the Duke of Buckingham did stand up and told the Lords that they were
beholden to my Lord Ashly, that having first commended them for a
most grave and honourable assembly, he thought it fit for the House to
pass this Act for Accounts because it was a foolish and simple Act: and
it seems it was passed with but a few in the House, when it was
intended to have met in a grand Committee upon it. And it seems that
in itself it is not to be practiced till after this session of Parliament, by
the very words of the Act, which nobody regarded, and therefore
cannot come in force yet, unless the next meeting they do make a new
Act for the bringing it into force sooner; which is a strange omission.
But I perceive my Lord Anglesey do make a mere laughing-stock of
this Act, as a thing that can do nothing considerable, for all its great
noise.

5th (Lord's day). Up, and being ready, and disappointed of a coach, it
breaking a wheel just as it was coming for me, I walked as far as the
Temple, it being dirty, and as I went out of my doors my cozen
Anthony Joyce met me, and so walked part of the way with me, and it
was to see what I would do upon what his wife a little while since did
desire, which was to supply him L350 to enable him to go to build his
house again. I (who in my nature am mighty unready to answer no to
anything, and thereby wonder that I have suffered no more in my life
by my easiness in that kind than I have) answered him that I would do
it, and so I will, he offering me good security, and so it being left for
me to consider the manner of doing it we parted. Taking coach as I said
before at the Temple, I to Charing Cross, and there went into
Unthanke's to have my shoes wiped, dirty with walking, and so to
White Hall, where I visited the Vice-Chamberlain, who tells me, and so
I find by others, that the business of putting out of some of the
Privy-council is over, the King being at last advised to forbear it; for

whereas he did design it to make room for some of the House of
Commons that are against him, thereby to gratify them, it is believed
that it will but so much the more fret the rest that are not provided for,
and raise a new stock of enemies by them that are displeased, and so all
they think is over: and it goes for a pretty saying of my Lord Anglesey's
up and down the Court, that he should lately say to one of them that are
the great promoters of this putting him and others out of the Council,
"Well," says he, "and what are we to look for when we are outed? Will
all things be set right in the nation?" The other said that he did believe
that many things would be mended: "But," says my Lord, "will you and
the rest of you be contented to be hanged, if you do not redeem all our
misfortunes and set all right, if the power be put into your hands?" The
other answered, "No, I would not undertake that:"--"Why, then," says
my Lord, "I and the