alone till twelve at night, drawing up my answer to Middleton, which I
think I shall do to very good purpose--at least, I satisfy myself therein;
and so to bed, weary with walking in my Office dictating to him [Hewer].
In the night my wife very ill, vomited, but was well again by and by.

14th. Up, and by water to White Hall to a Committee of Tangier, where,
among other things, a silly account of a falling out between Norwood, at
Tangier, and Mr. Bland, the mayor, who is fled to Cales [Cadiz]. His
complaint is ill-worded, and the other's defence the most ridiculous that
ever I saw; and so everybody else that was there, thought it; but never
did I see so great an instance of the use of grammar, and knowledge how to
tell a man's tale as this day, Bland having spoiled his business by
ill-telling it, who had work to have made himself notorious by his
mastering Norwood, his enemy, if he had known how to have used it. Thence
calling Smith, the Auditor's clerk at the Temple, I by the Exchange home,
and there looked over my Tangier accounts with him, and so to dinner, and
then set him down again by a hackney, my coachman being this day about
breaking of my horses to the coach, they having never yet drawn. Left my
wife at Unthank's, and I to the Treasury, where we waited on the Lords
Commissioners about Sir D. Gawden's matters, and so took her up again at
night, and home to the office, and so home with W. Hewer, and to talk
about our quarrel with Middleton, and so to supper and to bed. This day I
hear, and am glad, that the King hath prorogued the Parliament to October
next; and, among other reasons, it will give me time to go to France, I
hope.

15th. Up, and to the Office, where sat all the morning, and the new
Treasurers there; and, for my life, I cannot keep Sir J. Minnes and others
of the Board from shewing our weakness, to the dishonour of the Board,
though I am not concerned but it do vex me to the heart to have it before