melioration of the rest of his ground that he was to keep. The Court
consented to give him L700, only not to abate him the consideration: which
the man denied; but told them, and so they agreed, that he would excuse
the City the L700, that he might have the benefit of the melioration
without paying any thing for it. So much some will get by having the City
burned! But he told me that in other cases ground, by this means, that
was not 4d. a-foot before, will now, when houses are built, be worth 15s.
a-foot. But he tells me that the common standard now reckoned on between
man and man, in places where there is no alteration of circumstances, but
only the houses burnt, there the ground, which, with a house on it, did
yield L100 a-year, is now reputed worth L33 6s. 8d.; and that this is the
common market-price between one man and another, made upon a good and
moderate medium.

4th. At the office all the morning. At noon to dinner, and presently
with my wife abroad, whom and her girle I leave at Unthanke's, and so to
White Hall in expectation of waiting on the Duke of York to-day, but was
prevented therein, only at Mr. Wren's chamber there I hear that the House
of Lords did send down the paper which my Lord Chancellor left behind him,
directed to the Lords, to be seditious and scandalous; and the Commons
have voted that it be burned by the hands of the hangman, and that the
King be desired to agree to it. I do hear, also, that they have desired
the King to use means to stop his escape out of the nation. Here I also
heard Mr. Jermin, who was there in the chamber upon occasion of Sir Thomas
Harvy's telling him of his brother's having a child, and thereby taking
away his hopes (that is, Mr. Jermin's) of L2000 a year. He swore, God damn
him, he did not desire to have any more wealth than he had in the world,
which indeed is a great estate, having all his uncle's, my Lord St.
Alban's, and my Lord hath all the Queen-Mother's. But when Sir Thos.
Harvy told him that "hereafter you will wish it more;"--"By God," answers