which, if I can but remember how, I am now by him fully convinced of.
Anon Sir W. Pen went away, telling me that Sir W. Coventry that was within
had told him that the fleete is all come into the buoy of the Nore, and
that he must hasten down to them, and so went away, and I into the
Committee Chamber before the Committee sat, and there heard Birch
discourse highly and understandingly about the Navy business and a
proposal made heretofore to farm the Navy; but Sir W. Coventry did
abundantly answer him, and is a most excellent person. By and by the
Committee met, and I walked out, and anon they rose and called me in, and
appointed me to attend a Committee of them to-morrow at the office to
examine our lists. This put me into a mighty fear and trouble; they doing
it in a very ill humour, methought. So I away and called on my Lord
Bruncker to desire him to be there to-morrow, and so home, having taken up
my wife at Unthanke's, full of trouble in mind to think what I shall be
obliged to answer, that am neither fully fit, nor in any measure concerned
to take the shame and trouble of this office upon me, but only from the
inability and folly of the Comptroller that occasions it. When come home
I to Sir W. Pen's, to his boy, for my book, and there find he hath it not,
but delivered it to the doorekeeper of the Committee for me. This, added
to my former disquiet, made me stark mad, considering all the nakedness of
the office lay open in papers within those covers. I could not tell in
the world what to do, but was mad on all sides, and that which made me
worse Captain Cocke was there, and he did so swear and curse at the boy
that told me. So Cocke, Griffin, and the boy with me, they to find the
housekeeper of the Parliament, Hughes, while I to Sir W. Coventry, but
could hear nothing of it there. But coming to our rendezvous at the Swan
Taverne, in Ding Streete, I find they have found the housekeeper, and the
book simply locked up in the Court. So I staid and drank, and rewarded
the doore-keeper, and away home, my heart lighter by all this, but to bed
very sad notwithstanding, in fear of what will happen to-morrow upon their