Providence fire-ship, which was just fitted to go to sea. But they tell
me to-day no more sick on board. And this day W. Bodham tells me that one
is dead at Woolwich, not far from the Rope-yard. I am told, too, that a
wife of one of the groomes at Court is dead at Salsbury; so that the King
and Queene are speedily to be all gone to Milton. God preserve us!

13th (Lord's day). Up betimes and to my chamber, it being a very wet day
all day, and glad am I that we did not go by water to see "The Soveraigne"

["The Sovereign of the Seas" was built at Woolwich in 1637 of timber
which had been stripped of its bark while growing in the spring, and
not felled till the second autumn afterwards; and it is observed by
Dr. Plot ("Phil. Trans." for 1691), in his discourse on the most
seasonable time for felling timber, written by the advice of Pepys,
that after forty-seven years, "all the ancient timber then remaining
in her, it was no easy matter to drive a nail into it" ("Quarterly
Review," vol. viii., p. 35).--B.]

to-day, as I intended, clearing all matters in packing up my papers and
books, and giving instructions in writing to my executors, thereby
perfecting the whole business of my will, to my very great joy; so that I
shall be in much better state of soul, I hope, if it should please the
Lord to call me away this sickly time. At night to read, being weary with
this day's great work, and then after supper to bed, to rise betimes
to-morrow, and to bed with a mind as free as to the business of the world
as if I were not worth L100 in the whole world, every thing being evened
under my hand in my books and papers, and upon the whole I find myself
worth, besides Brampton estate, the sum of L2164, for which the Lord be
praised!