Sir G. Carteret and I alone in his closet an hour or more talking of my
Lord Sandwich's coming home, which, the peace being likely to be made
here, he expects, both for my Lord's sake and his own (whose interest he
wants) it will be best for him to be at home, where he will be well
received by the King; he is sure of his service well accepted, though the
business of Spain do fall by this peace. He tells me my Lord Arlington
hath done like a gentleman by him in all things. He says, if my Lord
[Sandwich] were here, he were the fittest man to be Lord Treasurer of any
man in England; and he thinks it might be compassed; for he confesses that
the King's matters do suffer through the inability of this man, who is
likely to die, and he will propound him to the King. It will remove him
from his place at sea, and the King will have a good place to bestow. He
says to me, that he could wish, when my Lord comes, that he would think
fit to forbear playing, as a thing below him, and which will lessen him,
as it do my Lord St. Albans, in the King's esteem: and as a great secret
tells me that he hath made a match for my Lord Hinchingbroke to a daughter
of my Lord Burlington's, where there is a great alliance, L10,000 portion;
a civil family, and relation to my Lord Chancellor, whose son hath married
one of the daughters; and that my Lord Chancellor do take it with very
great kindness, so that he do hold himself obliged by it. My Lord
Sandwich hath referred it to my Lord Crew, Sir G. Carteret, and Mr.
Montagu, to end it. My Lord Hinchingbroke and the lady know nothing yet
of it. It will, I think, be very happy. Very glad of this discourse, I
away mightily pleased with the confidence I have in this family, and so
away, took up my wife, who was at her mother's, and so home, where I
settled to my chamber about my accounts, both Tangier and private, and up
at it till twelve at night, with good success, when news is brought me
that there is a great fire in Southwarke: so we up to the leads, and then
I and the boy down to the end of our, lane, and there saw it, it seeming
pretty great, but nothing to the fire of London, that it made me think