Diary, September 1665 | Page 5

fleete comes in, and more if the fleete should not meet with the Dutch,
which will put a disgrace upon the King's actions, so as the Parliament
and Kingdom will have the less mind to give more money, besides so
bad an account of the last money, we fear, will be given, not half of it
being spent, as it ought to be, upon the Navy. Besides, it is said that at
this day our Lord Treasurer cannot tell what the profit of Chimney

money is, what it comes to per annum, nor looks whether that or any
other part of the revenue be duly gathered as it ought; the very money
that should pay the City the L200,000 they lent the King, being all
gathered and in the hands of the Receiver and hath been long and yet
not brought up to pay the City, whereas we are coming to borrow 4 or
L500,000 more of the City, which will never be lent as is to be feared.
Church being done, my Lord Bruncker, Sir J. Minnes, and I up to the
Vestry at the desire of the justices of the Peace, Sir Theo. Biddulph and
Sir W. Boreman and Alderman Hooker, in order to the doing
something for the keeping of the plague from growing; but Lord! to
consider the madness of the people of the town, who will (because they
are forbid) come in crowds along with the dead corps to see them
buried; but we agreed on some orders for the prevention thereof.
Among other stories, one was very passionate, methought, of a
complaint brought against a man in the towne for taking a child from
London from an infected house. Alderman Hooker told us it was the
child of a very able citizen in Gracious Street, a saddler, who had
buried all the rest of his children of the plague, and himself and wife
now being shut up and in despair of escaping, did desire only to save
the life of this little child; and so prevailed to have it received stark-
naked into the arms of a friend, who brought it (having put it into new
fresh clothes) to Greenwich; where upon hearing the story, we did
agree it should be permitted to be received and kept in the towne.
Thence with my Lord Bruncker to Captain Cocke's, where we mighty
merry and supped, and very late I by water to Woolwich, in great
apprehensions of an ague. Here was my Lord Bruncker's lady of
pleasure, who, I perceive, goes every where with him; and he, I find, is
obliged to carry her, and make all the courtship to her that can be.

4th. Writing letters all the morning, among others to my Lady Carteret,
the first I have wrote to her, telling her the state of the city as to health
and other sorrowfull stories, and thence after dinner to Greenwich, to
Sir J. Minnes, where I found my Lord Bruncker, and having staid our
hour for the justices by agreement, the time being past we to walk in
the Park with Mr. Hammond and Turner, and there eat some fruit out of
the King's garden and walked in the Parke, and so back to Sir J. Minnes,
and thence walked home, my Lord Bruncker giving me a very neat

cane to walk with; but it troubled me to pass by Coome farme where
about twenty-one people have died of the plague, and three or four days
since I saw a dead corps in a coffin lie in the Close unburied, and a
watch is constantly kept there night and day to keep the people in, the
plague making us cruel, as doggs, one to another.

5th. Up, and walked with some Captains and others talking to me to
Greenwich, they crying out upon Captain Teddiman's management of
the business of Bergen, that he staid treating too long while he saw the
Dutch fitting themselves, and that at first he might have taken every
ship, and done what he would with them. How true I cannot tell. Here
we sat very late and for want of money, which lies heavy upon us, did
nothing of business almost. Thence home with my Lord Bruncker to
dinner where very merry with him and his doxy. After dinner comes
Colonell Blunt in his new chariot made with springs; as that was of
wicker, wherein a while since we rode at his house. And he hath rode,
he says, now this journey, many miles in it with one horse, and
out-drives any coach, and out-goes any horse, and so easy, he says. So
for curiosity I went into it to try it, and up the hill to the heath, and over
the cart- rutts and found it