Prince and Duke of Albemarle themselves, and made the most of to me and
them by Sir W. Coventry: therefore I think it discretion, great and
necessary discretion, to keep in with him. After dinner to the office
again, where busy, and then down to Deptford to the yard, thinking to have
seen Bagwell's wife, whose husband is gone yesterday back to the fleete,
but I did not see her, so missed what I went for, and so back to the Tower
several times, about the business of the pressed men, and late at it till
twelve at night, shipping of them. But, Lord! how some poor women did
cry; and in my life I never did see such natural expression of passion as
I did here in some women's bewailing themselves, and running to every
parcel of men that were brought, one after another, to look for their
husbands, and wept over every vessel that went off, thinking they might be
there, and looking after the ship as far as ever they could by
moone-light, that it grieved me to the heart to hear them. Besides, to
see poor patient labouring men and housekeepers, leaving poor wives and
families, taking up on a sudden by strangers, was very hard, and that
without press-money, but forced against all law to be gone. It is a great
tyranny. Having done this I to the Lieutenant of the Tower and bade him
good night, and so away home and to bed.

2nd. Up betimes, and forced to go to my Lord Mayor's, about the business
of the pressed men; and indeed I find him a mean man of understanding and
dispatch of any publique business. Thence out of curiosity to Bridewell
to see the pressed men, where there are about 300; but so unruly that I
durst not go among them: and they have reason to be so, having been kept
these three days prisoners, with little or no victuals, and pressed out,
and, contrary to all course of law, without press-money, and men that are
not liable to it. Here I met with prating Colonel Cox, one of the City
collonells heretofore a great presbyter: but to hear how the fellow did
commend himself, and the service he do the King; and, like an asse, at