thence with Commissioner Pett to St. James's, where an hour with Mr.
Coventry talking of Mr. Pett's proceedings lately in the forest of
Sherwood, and thence with Pett to my Lord Ashley, Chancellor of the
Exchequer; where we met the auditors about settling the business of the
accounts of persons to whom money is due before the King's time in the
Navy, and the clearing of their imprests for what little of their debts
they have received. I find my Lord, as he is reported, a very ready,
quick, and diligent person. Thence I to Westminster Hall, where Term and
Parliament make the Hall full of people; no further news yet of the King
of France, whether he be dead or not. Here I met with my cozen Roger
Pepys, and walked a good while with him, and among other discourse as a
secret he hath committed to nobody but myself, and he tells me that his
sister Claxton now resolving to give over the keeping of his house at
Impington, he thinks it fit to marry again, and would have me, by the help
of my uncle Wight or others, to look him out a widow between thirty and
forty years old, without children, and with a fortune, which he will
answer in any degree with a joynture fit for her fortune. A woman sober,
and no high-flyer, as he calls it. I demanded his estate. He tells me,
which he says also he hath not done to any, that his estate is not full
L800 per annum, but it is L780 per annum, of which L200 is by the death of
his last wife, which he will allot for a joynture for a wife, but the
rest, which lies in Cambridgeshire, he is resolved to leave entire for his
eldest son. I undertook to do what I can in it, and so I shall. He tells
me that the King hath sent to them to hasten to make an end by midsummer,
because of his going into the country; so they have set upon four bills to
dispatch: the first of which is, he says, too devilish a severe act
against conventicles; so beyond all moderation, that he is afeard it will
ruin all: telling me that it is matter of the greatest grief to him in the
world, that he should be put upon this trust of being a Parliament-man,
because he says nothing is done, that he can see, out of any truth and