office, there to write down my journall, and take leave of my brother, whom I send back this afternoon, though rainy: which it hath not done a good while before. To Sir W. Pen’s to bed, and made my boy Tom to read me asleep.

10th. All the morning clearing our cellars, and breaking in pieces all my old lumber, to make room, and to prevent fire. And then to Sir W. Batten’s, and dined; and there hear that Sir W. Rider says that the town is full of the report of the wealth that is in his house, and would be glad that his friends would provide for the safety of their goods there. This made me get a cart; and thither, and there brought my money all away. Took a hackney-coach myself, (the hackney-coaches now standing at Allgate). Much wealth indeed there is at his house. Blessed be God, I got all mine well thence, and lodged it in my office; but vexed to have all the world see it. And with Sir W. Batten, who would have taken away my hands before they were stowed. But by and by comes brother Balty from sea, which I was glad of; and so got him, and Mr Tooker, and the boy, to watch with them all in the office all night, while I went down to my wife.

11th. In the evening at Sir W. Pen’s at supper: he in a mad, ridiculous, drunken humour; and it seems there have been some late distances between his lady and him, as my wife tells me. After supper, I home, and with Mr Hater, Gibson,⁶² and Tom alone, got all my chests and money into the further cellar with much pains, but great content to me when done. So very late and weary to bed.

12th. Up, and with Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen to St James’s by water, and there did our usual business with the Duke of York.

13th. Up, and down to Tower Wharfe; and there, with Balty and labourers from Deptford, did get my goods housed well at home. So down to Deptford again to fetch the rest, and there eat a bit of dinner at the Globe, with the master of the Bezan with me, while the labourers went to dinner. Here I hear that this poor town do bury still of the plague seven or eight in a day. So to Sir G. Carteret’s to work, and there did to my content ship off in the Bezan all the rest of my goods, saving my pictures and fine things, that I will bring home in wherrys when the house is fit to receive them; and so home, and unload them by carts and hands before night, to my exceeding satisfaction; and so after supper to bed in my house, the first time I have lain there.

14th. Up, and to work, having carpenters come to help in setting up bedsteads and hangings; and at that trade my people and I all the morning, till pressed by publick business to leave them against my will in the afternoon: and yet I was troubled in being at home, to see all my goods lie up and down the house in a bad condition, and strange workmen going to and fro might take what they would almost. All the afternoon busy; and Sir W. Coventry come to me, and found me, as God would have it, in my office, and people about me setting my papers to rights; and there discoursed about getting an account ready against the Parliament, and thereby did create me infinity of business, and to be done on a sudden; which troubled me; but, however, he being gone, I about it late, and to good purpose. And so home, having this day also got my wine out of the ground again, and set it in my cellar; but with great pain to keep the porters that carried it in from observing the money-chests there.

15th. Captain Cocke says he hath computed that the rents of the houses lost this fire in the City comes to £600,000 per annum; that this will make the Parliament more quiet than otherwise they would have been, and give the King a more ready supply; that the supply must be by excise, as it is in Holland; that the Parliament will see it necessary to carry on the war; that the late storm hindered our beating the Dutch fleet, who were gone out only to satisfy the people, having no business to do but to avoid us; that the French, as late in the year as it is, are coming; that the Dutch are really in bad condition, but that this unhappiness of ours do give them heart: that there was a late difference between my Lord Arlington and Sir W. Coventry about neglect in the latter to send away an express of the other’s in time; that it come before the King, and the Duke of York concerned himself in it; but this fire hath stopped it. The Dutch fleet is not gone home, but rather to the North, and so dangerous to our Gottenburgh fleet. That the Parliament is likely to fall foul upon some persons; and, among others, on the Vice-chamberlaine,⁶³ though we both believe with little ground. That certainly never so great a loss as this was borne so well