Diary, October 1665 | Page 6

musique to close the
night and so away and all of us saw Mrs. Belle Pierce (as pretty as ever
she was almost) home, and so walked to Will's lodging where I used to
lie, and there made shift for a bed for Mercer, and mighty pleasantly to
bed. This night I hear that of our two watermen that use to carry our
letters, and were well on Saturday last, one is dead, and the other dying
sick of the plague. The plague, though decreasing elsewhere, yet being
greater about the Tower and thereabouts.

4th. Up and to my office, where Mr. Andrews comes, and 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