wind being off the land, did force us to go out, and rendered our fire-ships useless; without doing any thing, but what hurt of course our guns must have done them: we having lost five commanders, besides Mr Edward Montagu, and Mr Windham Our fleet is come home to our great grief with not above five weeks’ dry, and six days’ wet provisions: however, must go out again; and the Duke hath ordered the Soveraigne, and all other ships ready, to go out to the fleet and strengthen them This news troubles us all, but cannot be helped Having read all this news, and received commands of the Duke with great content, he giving me the words which to my great joy he hath several times said to me, that his greatest reliance is upon me And my Lord Craven also did come out to talk with me, and told me that I am in mighty esteem with the Duke, for which I bless God Home; and having given my fellow-officers an account hereof, to Chatham, and wrote other letters I by water to Charing-Cross, to the post-house, and there the people tell me they are shut up; and so I went to the new post-house, and there got a guide and horses to Hounslow So to Stanes, and there by this time it was dark night, and got a guide who lost his way in the forest, till by help of the moone (which recompences me for all the pains I ever took about studying of her motions,) I led my guide into the way back again; and so we made a man rise that kept a gate, and so he carried us to Cranborne⁴¹ Where in the dark I perceive an old house new building with a great deal of rubbish, and was fain to go up a ladder to Sir G Carteret’s chamber And there in his bed I sat down, and told him all my bad news, which troubled him mightily; but yet we were very merry, and made the best of it; and being myself weary did take leave, and after having spoken with Mr Fenn⁴² in bed, I to bed in my Lady’s chamber that she uses to lie in, and where the Duchesse of York, that now is, was born So to sleep; being very well, but weary, and the better by having carried with me a bottle of strong water; whereof now and then a sip did me good.

20th I up and to walk forth to see the place; and I find it to be a very noble seat in a noble forest, with the noblest prospect towards Windsor, and round about over many countys, that can be desired; but otherwise a very melancholy place, and little variety save only trees To Brainford; and there at the inn that goes down to the waterside, I light and paid off my post-horses, and so slipped on my shoes, and laid my things by, the tide not serving, and to church, where a dull sermon, and many Londoners After church to my inn, and eat and drank, and so about seven o’clock by water, and got between nine and ten to Queenhive,⁴³ very dark And I could not get my waterman to go elsewhere for fear of the plague Thence with a lanthorn, in great fear of meeting of dead corpses, carrying to be buried; but, blessed be God, met none, but did see now and then a linke (which is the mark of them) at a distance.

22nd I went away and walked to Greenwich, in my way seeing a coffin with a dead body therein, dead of the plague, lying in an open close belonging to Coome farme, which was carried out last night, and the parish have not appointed any body to bury it; but only set a watch there all day and night, that nobody should go thither or come thence: this disease making us more cruel to one another than we are to dogs.

25th. This day I am told that Dr Burnett, my physician, is this morning dead of the plague; which is strange, his man dying so long ago, and his house this month open again. Now himself dead. Poor unfortunate man!

28th. I think to take adieu to-day of the London streets. In much the best posture I ever was in in my life, both as to the quantity and the certainty I have of the money I am worth; having most of it in my hand. But then this is a trouble to me what to do with it, being myself this day going to be wholly at Woolwich; but for the present I am resolved to venture it in an iron chest, at least for a while.

30th. Abroad, and met with Hadley, our clerke, who, upon my asking how the plague goes, told me it encreases much, and much in our parish; for, says he, there died nine this week, though I have returned but six: which is a very ill practice, and makes me think it is so in other places; and therefore the plague much greater than people take it to be. I went forth and walked towards Moorefields to see (God forgive my presumption) whether I could see any dead corpse going to the grave; but, as God would have it, did not. But, Lord! how every body looks, and discourse in the street is of death, and nothing else, and few people going up and down, that the town is like a place distressed and forsaken.