Redriffe, and so walked by moonlight to Deptford, where I have not been a
great while, and my business I did there was only to walk up and down
above la casa of Bagwell, but could not see her, it being my intent to
have spent a little time con her, she being newly come from her husband;
but I did lose my labour, and so walked back again, but with pleasure by
the walk, and I had the sport to see two boys swear, and stamp, and fret,
for not being able to get their horse over a stile and ditch, one of them
swearing and cursing most bitterly; and I would fain, in revenge, have
persuaded him to have drove his horse through the ditch, by which I
believe he would have stuck there. But the horse would not be drove, and
so they were forced to go back again, and so I walked away homeward, and
there reading all the evening, and so to bed. This afternoon my Lord
Anglesey tells us that it is voted in Council to have a fleete of 50 ships
out; but it is only a disguise for the Parliament to get some money by;
but it will not take, I believe, and if it did, I do not think it will be
such as he will get any of, nor such as will enable us to set out such a
fleete.

16th. Up, after talking with my wife with pleasure, about her learning on
the flageolet a month or two again this winter, and all the rest of the
year her painting, which I do love, and so to the office, where sat all
the morning, and here Lord Anglesey tells us again that a fleete is to be
set out; and that it is generally, he hears, said, that it is but a
Spanish rhodomontado; and that he saying so just now to the Duke of
Albemarle, who come to town last night, after the thing was ordered, he
told him a story of two seamen: one wished all the guns of the ship were
his, and that they were silver; and says the other, "You are a fool, for,
if you can have it for wishing, why do you not wish them gold?"--"So,"
says he, "if a rhodomontado will do any good, why do you not say 100
ships?" And it is true; for the Dutch and French are said to make such