my papers, which have lain unsorted for all the time we were at Greenwich
during the plague, which did please me also, I drawing on to put my office
into a good posture, though much is behind. This morning come Captain.
Cocke to me, and tells me that the King comes to the House this day to
pass the poll Bill and the Irish Bill; he tells me too that, though the
Faction is very froward in the House, yet all will end well there. But he
says that one had got a Bill ready to present in the House against Sir W.
Coventry, for selling of places, and says he is certain of it, and how he
was withheld from doing it. He says, that the Vice-chamberlaine is now
one of the greatest men in England again, and was he that did prevail with
the King to let the Irish Bill go with the word "Nuisance." He told me,
that Sir G. Carteret's declaration of giving double to any man that will
prove that any of his people have demanded or taken any thing for
forwarding the payment of the wages of any man (of which he sent us a copy
yesterday, which we approved of) is set up, among other places, upon the
House of Lords' door. I do not know how wisely this is done. This
morning, also, there come to the office a letter from the Duke of York,
commanding our payment of no wages to any of the muster-masters of the
fleete the last year, but only two, my brother Balty, taking notice that
he had taken pains therein, and one Ward, who, though he had not taken so
much as the other, yet had done more than the rest. This I was exceeding
glad of for my own sake and his. At night I, by appointment, home, where
W. Batelier and his sister Mary, and the two Mercers, to play at cards and
sup, and did cut our great cake lately given us by Russell: a very good
one. Here very merry late. Sir W. Pen told me this night how the King
did make them a very sharp speech in the House of Lords to-day, saying
that he did expect to have had more Bills;

[On this day "An Act for raising Money by a Poll and otherwise
towards the maintenance of the present War," and "An Act prohibiting