Diary, July 1665 | Page 5

good dinner at the cost of one Mr.
Osbaston, who lost a wager to Sir W. Batten, Sir W. Rider, and Sir R.
Ford, a good while since and now it is spent. The wager was that ten of
our ships should not have a fight with ten of the enemy's before
Michaelmas. Here was other very good company, and merry, and at last

in come Mr. Buckeworth, a very fine gentleman, and proves to be a
Huntingdonshire man. Thence to my office and there all the afternoon
till night, and so home to settle some accounts of Tangier and other
papers. I hear this day the Duke and Prince Rupert are both come back
from sea, and neither of them go back again. The latter I much wonder
at, but it seems the towne reports so, and I am very glad of it. This
morning I did a good piece of work with Sir W. Warren, ending the
business of the lotterys, wherein honestly I think I shall get above L100.
Bankert, it seems, is come home with the little fleete he hath been
abroad with, without doing any thing, so that there is nobody of an
enemy at sea. We are in great hopes of meeting with the Dutch East
India fleete, which is mighty rich, or with De Ruyter, who is so also.
Sir Richard Ford told me this day, at table, a fine account, how the
Dutch were like to have been mastered by the present Prince of Orange
[The period alluded to is 1650, when the States-General disbanded part
of the forces which the Prince of Orange (William) wished to retain.
The prince attempted, but unsuccessfully, to possess himself of
Amsterdam. In the same year he died, at the early age of twenty-four;
some say of the small-pox; others, with Sir Richard Ford, say of
poison.--B.]
his father to be besieged in Amsterdam, having drawn an army of foot
into the towne, and horse near to the towne by night, within three miles
of the towne, and they never knew of it; but by chance the Hamburgh
post in the night fell among the horse, and heard their design, and
knowing the way, it being very dark and rainy, better than they, went
from them, and did give notice to the towne before the others could
reach the towne, and so were saved. It seems this De Witt and another
family, the Beckarts, were among the chief of the familys that were
enemys to the Prince, and were afterwards suppressed by the Prince,
and continued so till he was, as they say, poysoned; and then they
turned all again, as it was, against the young Prince, and have so carried
it to this day, it being about 12 and 14 years, and De Witt in the head of
them.

5th. Up, and advised about sending of my wife's bedding and things to
Woolwich, in order to her removal thither. So to the office, where all
the morning till noon, and so to the 'Change, and thence home to dinner.

In the afternoon I abroad to St. James's, and there with Mr. Coventry a
good while, and understand how matters are ordered in the fleete: that
is, my Lord Sandwich goes Admiral; under him Sir G. Ascue, and Sir T.
Teddiman; Vice-Admiral, Sir W. Pen; and under him Sir W. Barkeley,
and Sir Jos. Jordan: Reere-Admiral, Sir Thomas Allen; and under him
Sir Christopher Mings,
[The son of a shoemaker, bred to the sea-service; he rose to the rank of
an admiral, and was killed in the fight with the Dutch, June, 1666.--B.
See post, June 10th, 1666.]
and Captain Harman. We talked in general of business of the Navy,
among others how he had lately spoken to Sir G. Carteret, and
professed great resolution of friendship with him and reconciliation,
and resolves to make it good as well as he can, though it troubles him,
he tells me, that something will come before him wherein he must give
him offence, but I do find upon the whole that Mr. Coventry do not
listen to these complaints of money with the readiness and resolvedness
to remedy that he used to do, and I think if he begins to draw in it is
high time for me to do so too. From thence walked round to White Hall,
the Parke being quite locked up; and I observed a house shut up this
day in the Pell Mell, where heretofore in Cromwell's time we young
men used to keep our weekly clubs. And so to White Hall to Sir G.
Carteret, who is come this day from Chatham, and mighty glad he is to
see me, and begun to talk of our great business of the match, which
goes