School, where I saw good dancing, but it growing late, and the room very
full of people and so very hot, I went home.

25th. To the office, where Sir W. Batten, Colonel Slingsby, and I sat
awhile, and Sir R. Ford

[Sir Richard Ford was one of the commissioners sent to Breda to
desire Charles II. to return to England immediately.]

coming to us about some business, we talked together of the interest of
this kingdom to have a peace with Spain and a war with France and Holland;
where Sir R. Ford talked like a man of great reason and experience. And
afterwards I did send for a cup of tee'

[That excellent and by all Physicians, approved, China drink, called
by the Chineans Tcha, by other nations Tay alias Tee, is sold at the
Sultaness Head Coffee-House, in Sweetings Rents, by the "Royal
Exchange, London." "Coffee, chocolate, and a kind of drink called
tee, sold in almost every street in 1659."--Rugge's Diurnal. It is
stated in "Boyne's Trade Tokens," ed. Williamson, vol. i., 1889,
p. 593 "that the word tea occurs on no other tokens than those
issued from 'the Great Turk' (Morat ye Great) coffeehouse in
Exchange Alley. The Dutch East India Company introduced tea into
Europe in 1610, and it is said to have been first imported into
England from Holland about 1650. The English "East India Company"
purchased and presented 2 lbs. of tea to Charles II. in 1660, and 23
lbs. in 1666. The first order for its importation by the company
was in 1668, and the first consignment of it, amounting to 143 lbs.,
was received from Bantam in 1669 (see Sir George Birdwood's "Report
on the Old Records at the India Office," 1890, p. 26). By act 12