Diary, Mar/Apr 1662/63 | Page 9

second moral
qualities, was not made in Pepys's day.]
girl at all sorts of fine work, which pleases me very well, and I hope
will be very good entertainment for my wife without much cost. So to
write by the post, and so home to supper and to bed.

15th (Lord's day). Up and with my wife and her woman Ashwell the
first time to church, where our pew was so full with Sir J. Minnes's
sister and her daughter, that I perceive, when we come all together,
some of us must be shut out, but I suppose we shall come to some order
what to do therein. Dined at home, and to church again in the afternoon,
and so home, and I to my office till the evening doing one thing or
other and reading my vows as I am bound every Lord's day, and so
home to supper and talk, and Ashwell is such good company that I
think we shall be very lucky in her. So to prayers and to bed. This day
the weather, which of late has been very hot and fair, turns very wet

and cold, and all the church time this afternoon it thundered mightily,
which I have not heard a great while.

16th. Up very betimes and to my office, where, with several Masters of
the King's ships, Sir J. Minnes and I advising upon the business of
Slopps, wherein the seaman is so much abused by the Pursers, and that
being done, then I home to dinner, and so carried my wife to her
mother's, set her down and Ashwell to my Lord's lodging, there left her,
and I to the Duke, where we met of course, and talked of our Navy
matters. Then to the Commission of Tangier, and there, among other
things, had my Lord Peterborough's Commission read over; and Mr.
Secretary Bennet did make his querys upon it, in order to the drawing
one for my Lord Rutherford more regularly, that being a very
extravagant thing. Here long discoursing upon my Lord Rutherford's
despatch, and so broke up, and so going out of the Court I met with Mr.
Coventry, and so he and I walked half an hour in the long Stone
Gallery, where we discoursed of many things, among others how the
Treasurer doth intend to come to pay in course, which is the thing of
the world that will do the King the greatest service in the Navy, and
which joys my heart to hear of. He tells me of the business of Sir J.
Minnes and Sir W. Pen, which I knew before, but took no notice or
little that I did know it. But he told me it was chiefly to make Mr. Pett's
being joyned with Sir W. Batten to go down the better, and do tell me
how he well sees that neither one nor the other can do their duties
without help. But however will let it fall at present without doing more
in it to see whether they will do their duties themselves, which he will
see, and saith they do not. We discoursed of many other things to my
great content and so parted, and I to my wife at my Lord's lodgings,
where I heard Ashwell play first upon the harpsicon, and I find she do
play pretty well, which pleaseth me very well. Thence home by coach,
buying at the Temple the printed virginal- book for her, and so home
and to my office a while, and so home and to supper and to bed.

17th. Up betimes and to my office a while, and then home and to Sir W.
Batten, with whom by coach to St. Margaret's Hill in Southwark, where
the judge of the Admiralty came, and the rest of the Doctors of the
Civill law, and some other Commissioners, whose Commission of Oyer

and Terminer was read, and then the charge, given by Dr. Exton, 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. That being done, and the jury called, they broke up,
and to dinner to a tavern hard by, where a great dinner, and I with them;
but 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. In the afternoon to the court again, where, first, Abraham, the
boatswain of the King's pleasure boat,