can go away. So home to supper and to bed. This night Sir W. Batten did,
among other things, tell me strange newes, which troubles me, that my Lord
Sandwich will be sent Governor to Tangier, which, in some respects,
indeed, I should be glad of, for the good of the place and the safety of
his person; but I think his honour will suffer, and, it may be, his
interest fail by his distance.

4th. Waked very betimes and lay long awake, my mind being so full of
business. Then up and to St. James's, where I find Mr. Coventry full of
business, packing up for his going to sea with the Duke. Walked with him,
talking, to White Hall, where to the Duke's lodgings, who is gone thither
to lodge lately. I appeared to the Duke, and thence Mr. Coventry and I an
hour in the Long Gallery, talking about the management of our office, he
tells me the weight of dispatch will lie chiefly on me, and told me freely
his mind touching Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes, the latter of whom, he
most aptly said, was like a lapwing; that all he did was to keepe a
flutter, to keepe others from the nest that they would find. He told me
an old story of the former about the light-houses, how just before he had
certified to the Duke against the use of them, and what a burden they are
to trade, and presently after, at his being at Harwich, comes to desire
that he might have the setting one up there, and gets the usefulness of it
certified also by the Trinity House. After long discoursing and
considering all our stores and other things, as how the King hath resolved
upon Captain Taylor

[Coventry, writing to Secretary Bennet (November 14th, 1664), refers
to the objections made to Taylor, and adds: "Thinks the King will
not easily consent to his rejection, as he is a man of great
abilities and dispatch, and was formerly laid aside at Chatham on