28th. Up, and to the office, and there with W. Griffin talking about
getting the place to build a coach-house, or to hire one, which I now do
resolve to have, and do now declare it; for it is plainly for my benefit
for saving money. By and by the office sat, and there we concluded on our
letter to the Commissioners of Accounts and to the several officers of
ours about the work they are to do to answer their late great demands. At
noon home to dinner, and after dinner set my wife and girl down at the
Exchange, and I to White Hall; and, by and by, the Duke of York comes, and
we had a little meeting, Anglesey, W. Pen, and I there, and none else:
and, among other things, did discourse of the want of discipline in the
fleete, which the Duke' of York confessed, and yet said that he, while he
was there, did keep it in a good measure, but that it was now lost when he
was absent; but he will endeavour to have it again. That he did tell the
Prince and Duke of Albemarle they would lose all order by making such and
such men commanders, which they would, because they were stout men: he
told them that it was a reproach to the nation, as if there were no sober
men among us, that were stout, to be had. That they did put out some men
for cowards that the Duke of York had put in, but little before, for stout
men; and would now, were he to go to sea again, entertain them in his own
division, to choose: and did put in an idle fellow, Greene, who was hardly
thought fit for a boatswain by him: they did put him from being a
lieutenant to a captain's place of a second-rate ship; as idle a drunken
fellow, he said, as any was in the fleete. That he will now desire the
King to let him be what he is, that is, Admirall; and he will put in none
but those that he hath great reason to think well of; and particularly
says, that; though he likes Colonell Legg well, yet his son that was, he
knows not how, made a captain after he had been but one voyage at sea, he
should go to sea another apprenticeship, before ever he gives him a
command. We did tell him of the many defects and disorders among the
captains, and I prayed we might do it in writing to him, which he liked;