had a mind to, for indeed my Lord being unconcerned in what I aimed at. So
home to dinner, where Mr. Sheldon come by invitation from Woolwich, and as
merry as I could be with all my thoughts about me and my wife still in
pain of her tooth. He anon took leave and took Mrs. Barbary his niece
home with him, and seems very thankful to me for the L10 I did give him
for my wife's rent of his house, and I am sure I am beholding to him, for
it was a great convenience to me, and then my wife home to London by water
and I to the office till 8 at night, and so to my Lord Bruncker's,
thinking to have been merry, having appointed a meeting for Sir J. Minnes
and his company and Mrs. Knipp again, but whatever hindered I know not,
but no company come, which vexed me because it disappointed me of the glut
of mirthe I hoped for. However, good discourse with my Lord and merry,
with Mrs. Williams's descants upon Sir J. Minnes's and Mrs. Turner's not
coming. So home and to bed.

5th. I with my Lord Bruncker and Mrs. Williams by coach with four horses
to London, to my Lord's house in Covent-Guarden. But, Lord! what staring
to see a nobleman's coach come to town. And porters every where bow to
us; and such begging of beggars! And a delightfull thing it is to see the
towne full of people again as now it is; and shops begin to open, though
in many places seven or eight together, and more, all shut; but yet the
towne is full, compared with what it used to be. I mean the City end; for
Covent-Guarden and Westminster are yet very empty of people, no Court nor
gentry being there. Set Mrs. Williams down at my Lord's house and he and
I to Sir G. Carteret, at his chamber at White Hall, he being come to town
last night to stay one day. So my Lord and he and I much talke about the
Act, what credit we find upon it, but no private talke between him and I.
So I to the 'Change, and there met Mr. Povy, newly come to town, and he
and I to Sir George Smith's and there dined nobly. He tells me how my Lord
Bellases complains for want of money and of him and me therein, but I