25th. Up, and all the morning at my Tangier accounts, which the chopping
and changing of my tallys make mighty troublesome; but, however, I did end
them with great satisfaction to myself. At noon, without staying to eat
my dinner, I down by water to Deptford, and there coming find Sir W.
Batten and Sir Jeremy Smith (whom the dispatch of the Loyall London
detained) at dinner at Greenwich at the Beare Taverne, and thither I to
them and there dined with them. Very good company of strangers there was,
but I took no great pleasure among them, being desirous to be back again.
So got them to rise as soon as I could, having told them the newes Sir W.
Coventry just now wrote me to tell them, which is, that the Dutch are
certainly come out. I did much business at Deptford, and so home, by an
old poor man, a sculler, having no oares to be got, and all this day on
the water entertained myself with the play of Commenius, and being come
home did go out to Aldgate, there to be overtaken by Mrs. Margot Pen in
her father's coach, and my wife and Mercer with her, and Mrs. Pen carried
us to two gardens at Hackny, (which I every day grow more and more in love
with,) Mr. Drake's one, where the garden is good, and house and the
prospect admirable; the other my Lord Brooke's, where the gardens are much
better, but the house not so good, nor the prospect good at all. But the
gardens are excellent; and here I first saw oranges grow: some green, some
half, some a quarter, and some full ripe, on the same tree, and one fruit
of the same tree do come a year or two after the other. I pulled off a
little one by stealth (the man being mighty curious of them) and eat it,
and it was just as other little green small oranges are; as big as half
the end of my little finger. Here were also great variety of other
exotique plants, and several labarinths, and a pretty aviary. Having done
there with very great pleasure we away back again, and called at the
Taverne in Hackny by the church, and there drank and eate, and so in the
Goole of the evening home. This being the first day of my putting on my