last night so pretty that I took him and the bitch into my closet below,
and by holding down the bitch helped him to line her, which he did very
stoutly, so as I hope it will take, for it is the prettiest dog that ever
I saw. So to the office, where very busy all the morning, and so to the
'Change, and off hence with Sir W. Rider to the Trinity House, and there
dined very well: and good discourse among the old men of Islands now and
then rising and falling again in the Sea, and that there is many dangers
of grounds and rocks that come just up to the edge almost of the sea, that
is never discovered and ships perish without the world's knowing the
reason of it. Among other things, they observed, that there are but two
seamen in the Parliament house, viz., Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen, and
not above twenty or thirty merchants; which is a strange thing in an
island, and no wonder that things of trade go no better nor are better
understood. Thence home, and all the afternoon at the office, only for an
hour in the evening my Lady Jemimah, Paulina, and Madam Pickering come to
see us, but my wife would not be seen, being unready. Very merry with
them; they mightily talking of their thrifty living for a fortnight before
their mother came to town, and other such simple talk, and of their merry
life at Brampton, at my father's, this winter. So they being gone, to the
office again till late, and so home and to supper and to bed.

24th. Called up by my father, poor man, coming to advise with me about
Tom's house and other matters, and he being gone I down by water to
Greenwich, it being very-foggy, and I walked very finely to Woolwich, and
there did very much business at both yards, and thence walked back,
Captain Grove with me talking, and so to Deptford and did the like-there,
and then walked to Redriffe (calling and eating a bit of collops and eggs
at Half-way house), and so home to the office, where we sat late, and home
weary to supper and to bed.