Diary, October 1665 | Page 6

reckoning with him I get L64 of him. By and by comes Mr. Gawden, and reckoning with him he gives me L60 in his account, which is a great mercy to me. Then both of them met and discoursed the business of the first man's resigning and the other's taking up the business of the victualling of Tangier, and I do not think that I shall be able to do as well under Mr. Gawden as under these men, or within a little as to profit and less care upon me. Thence to the King's Head to dinner, where we three and Creed and my wife and her woman dined mighty merry and sat long talking, and so in the afternoon broke up, and I led my wife to our lodging again, and I to the office where did much business, and so to my wife. This night comes Sir George Smith to see me at the office, and tells me how the plague is decreased this week 740, for which God be praised! but that it encreases at our end of the town still, and says how all the towne is full of Captain Cocke's being in some ill condition about prize-goods, his goods being taken from him, and I know not what. But though this troubles me to have it said, and that it is likely to be a business in Parliament, yet I am not much concerned at it, because yet I believe this newes is all false, for he would have wrote to me sure about it. Being come to my wife, at our lodging, I did go to bed, and left my wife with her people to laugh and dance and I to sleep.

5th. Lay long in bed talking among other things of my sister Pall, and my wife of herself is very willing that I should give her L400 to her portion, and would have her married soon as we could; but this great sicknesse time do make it unfit to send for her up. I abroad to the office and thence to the Duke of Albemarle, all my way reading a book of Mr. Evelyn's translating and sending me as a present, about directions for gathering a Library;
[Instructions concerning erecting of a Library, presented to my Lord the President De Mesme by Gilbert Naudeus, and now interpreted by Jo. Evelyn, Esquire. London, 1661: This little book was dedicated to Lord Clarendon by the translator. It was printed while Evelyn was abroad, and is full of typographical errors; these are corrected in a copy mentioned in Evelyn's "Miscellaneous Writings," 1825, p. xii, where a letter to Dr. Godolphin on the subject is printed.]
but the book is above my reach, but his epistle to my Lord Chancellor is a very fine piece. When I come to the Duke it was about the victuallers' business, to put it into other hands, or more hands, which I do advise in, but I hope to do myself a jobb of work in it. So I walked through Westminster to my old house the Swan, and there did pass some time with Sarah, and so down by water to Deptford and there to my Valentine.
[A Mrs. Bagwell. See ante, February 14th, 1664-65]
Round about and next door on every side is the plague, but I did not value it, but there did what I would 'con elle', and so away to Mr. Evelyn's to discourse of our confounded business of prisoners, and sick and wounded seamen, wherein he and we are so much put out of order.
[Each of the Commissioners for the Sick and Wounded was appointed to a particular district, and Evelyn's district was Kent and Sussex. On September 25th, 1665, Evelyn wrote in his Diary: "My Lord Admiral being come from ye fleete to Greenewich, I went thence with him to ye Cockpit to consult with the Duke of Albemarle. I was peremptory that unlesse we had L10,000 immediately, the prisoners would starve, and 'twas proposed it should be rais'd out of the E. India prizes now taken by Lord Sandwich. They being but two of ye Commission, and so not impower'd to determine, sent an expresse to his Majesty and Council to know what they should do."]
And here he showed me his gardens, which are for variety of evergreens, and hedge of holly, the finest things I ever saw in my life.
[Evelyn purchased Sayes Court, Deptford, in 1653, and laid out his gardens, walks, groves, enclosures, and plantations, which afterwards became famous for their beauty. When he took the place in hand it was nothing but an open field of one hundred acres, with scarcely a hedge in it.]
Thence in his coach to Greenwich, and there to my office, all the way having fine discourse of trees