I fell to business, which was very great, but got it well over by nine at
night, and so home, and after supper to bed.

24th. Lay pleasantly, talking to my wife, till 8 o'clock, then up and to
Sir W. Batten's to see him and Sir G. Carteret and Sir J. Minnes take
coach towards the Pay at Chatham, which they did and I home, and took
money in my pocket to pay many reckonings to-day in the town, as my
bookseller's, and paid at another shop L4 10s. for "Stephens's Thesaurus
Graecae Linguae," given to Paul's School: So to my brother's and
shoemaker, and so to my Lord Crew's, and dined alone with him, and after
dinner much discourse about matters. Upon the whole, I understand there
are great factions at Court, and something he said that did imply a
difference like to be between the King and the Duke, in case the Queen
should not be with child. I understand, about this bastard.

[James Crofts, son of Charles II. by Lucy Walter, created Duke of
Monmouth in 1663, Duke of Buccleuch in 1673, when he took the name
of Scott.]

He says, also, that some great man will be aimed at when Parliament comes
to sit again; I understand, the Chancellor: and that there is a bill will
be brought in, that none that have been in arms for the Parliament shall
be capable of office. And that the Court are weary of my Lord Albemarle
and Chamberlin. He wishes that my Lord Sandwich had some good occasion to
be abroad this summer which is coming on, and that my Lord Hinchingbroke
were well married, and Sydney had some place at Court. He pities the poor
ministers that are put out, to whom, he says, the King is beholden for his
coming in, and that if any such thing had been foreseen he had never come
in. After this, and much other discourse of the sea, and breeding young
gentlemen to the sea, I went away, and homeward, met Mr. Creed at my