as we could to give the Parliament, and so very melancholy parted. So I
back again, calling my wife at her sister's, from whose husband we do now
hear that he was safe this week, and going in a ship to the fleete from
the buoy of the Nore, where he has been all this while, the fleete being
gone before he got down. So home, and busy till night, and then to Sir W.
Pen, with my wife, to sit and chat, and a small supper, and home to bed.
The death of Everson, and the report of our success, beyond expectation,
in the killing of so great a number of men, hath raised the estimation of
the late victory considerably; but it is only among fools: for all that
was but accidental. But this morning, getting Sir .W. Pen to read over
the Narrative with me, he did sparingly, yet plainly, say that we might
have intercepted their Zealand squadron coming home, if we had done our
parts; and more, that we might have spooned before the wind as well as
they, and have overtaken their ships in the pursuite, in all the while.

[To spoom, or spoon, is to go right before the wind, without any
sail. Sea Dictionary. Dryden uses the word

"When virtue spooms before a prosperous gale,
My heaving wishes help to fill the sail."
Hind and Panther, iii. 96.]

4th. Up, and to the office, where all the morning, and, at noon to
dinner, and Mr. Cooke dined with us, who is lately come from
Hinchingbroke, [Lord Hinchingbrooke] who is also come to town: The family
all well. Then I to the office, where very busy to state to Mr. Coventry
the account of the victuals of the fleete, and late at it, and then home
to supper and to bed. This evening, Sir W. Pen come into the garden, and
walked with me, and told me that he had certain notice that at Flushing
they are in great distraction. De Ruyter dares not come on shore for fear