tells me of the business of Sir J Minnes, and Sir W Pen, which, he said, was chiefly to make Mr Pett’s being joyned with Sir W Batten to go down the better And how he well sees that neither one nor the other can do their duties without help.

17th To St Margaret’s Hill in Southwark, where the Judge of the Admiralty come, and the rest of the Doctors of the Civil law, and some other Commissioners, whose Commission of Oyer and Terminer was read, and then the charge, given by Dr Exton,²⁵ which methought was somewhat dull, though he would seem to intend it to be very rhetoricall, saying that Justice had two wings, one of which spread itself over the land, and the other over the water, which was this Admiralty Court I perceive that this Court is yet but in its infancy, (as to its rising again) and their design and consultation was, I could overhear them, how to proceed with the most solemnity, and spend time, there being only two businesses to do, which of themselves could not spend much time Sir W Batten and I to my Lord Mayor’s, where we found my Lord with Colonel Strangways²⁶ and Sir Richard Floyd,²⁷ Parliament-men, in the cellar drinking, where we sat with them, and then up, and by and by come in Sir Richard Ford We had many discourses, but from all of them I do find Sir R Ford a very able man of his brains and tongue, and a scholler But my Lord Mayor a talking, bragging, buffle-headed fellow, that would be thought to have led all the City in the great business of bringing in the King, and that nobody understood his plot, and the dark lanthorn he walked by, but led them and plowed with them as oxen and asses (his own words) to do what he had a mind when in every discourse I observe him to be as very a coxcombe as I could have thought had been in the City But he is resolved to do great matters in pulling down the shops quite through the City as he hath done in many places, and will make a thorough passage quite through the City, through Canning Street, which indeed will be very fine And then his precept, which he, in vainglory, said he had drawn up himself, and hath printed it, against coachmen and carmen affronting of the gentry in the street, it is drawn so like a fool, and some faults were openly found in it, that I believe he will have so much wit as not to proceed upon it though it be printed Here we staid talking till eleven at night, Sir R Ford breaking to my Lord our business of our patent to be Justices of the Peace in the City, which he stuck at mightily, but, however, Sir R Ford knows him to be a fool, and so in his discourse he made him appear, and cajoled him into a consent to it but so as I believe when he comes to his right mind to-morrow he will be of another opinion, and though Sir R Ford moved it very weightily and neatly, yet I had rather it had been spared now But to see how he rants, and pretends to sway all the City in the Court of Aldermen, and says plainly that they cannot do nor will he suffer them to do, any thing but what he pleases, nor is there any officer of the City but of his putting in, nor any man that could have kept the City for the King thus well and long but him And if the country can be preserved, he will undertake that the City shall not dare to stir again When I am confident there is no man almost in the City cares for him, nor hath he brains to outwit any ordinary tradesman.

20th Meeting with Mr Kirton’s kinsman in Paul’s Church Yard, he and I to a coffee-house, where I hear how there had like to have been a surprizall of Dublin by some discontented protestants, and other things of like nature, and it seems the Commissioners have carried themselves so high for the Papists that the others will not endure it Hewlett and some others are taken and clapped up, and they say the King hath sent over to dissolve the Parliament there who went very high against the Commissioners Pray God send all well.

21st By appointment our full board met, and Sir Philip Warwick and Sir Robert Long come from my Lord Treasurer to speak with us about the state of the debts of the Navy, and how to settle it, so as to begin upon the new foundation of £200,000 per annum, which the King is now resolved not to exceed.

22nd (Lord’s day) Wrote out our bill for the Parliament about our being made Justices of Peace in the City So to church, where a dull formall fellow that prayed for the Right Hon John Lord Barkeley, Lord President of Connaught, &c To my Lord Sandwich, and with him talking a good while, I find the Court would have this Indulgence go on, but the Parliament are against it Matters in Ireland are full of discontent.