no hurt. How it come to pass I know not, but only it was dark, and the
torches did not, they say, light the coach as they should do. I thought
this morning to have seen my Lord Sandwich before he went out of town, but
I come half an hour too late; which troubles me, I having not seen him
since my Lady Palls died. So W. Hewer and I to the Harp-and-Ball, to
drink my morning draught, having come out in haste; and there met with
King, the Parliament-man, with whom I had some impertinent talk. And so
to the Privy Seal Office, to examine what records I could find there, for
my help in the great business I am put upon, of defending the present
constitution of the Navy; but there could not have liberty without order
from him that is in present waiting, Mr. Bickerstaffe, who is out of town.
This I did after I had walked to the New Exchange and there met Mr. Moore,
who went with me thither, and I find him the same discontented poor man as
ever. He tells me that Mr. Shepley is upon being turned away from my
Lord's family, and another sent down, which I am sorry for; but his age
and good fellowship have almost made him fit for nothing. Thence, at
Unthanke's my wife met me, and with our coach to my cozen Turner's and
there dined, and after dinner with my wife alone to the King's playhouse,
and there saw "The Mocke Astrologer," which I have often seen, and but an
ordinary play; and so to my cozen Turner's again, where we met Roger
Pepys, his wife, and two daughters, and there staid and talked a little,
and then home, and there my wife to read to me, my eyes being sensibly
hurt by the too great lights of the playhouse. So to supper and to bed.

9th. Up, and to the Tower; and there find Sir W. Coventry alone, writing
down his journal, which, he tells me, he now keeps of the material things;
upon which I told him, and he is the only man I ever told it to, I think,
that I kept it most strictly these eight or ten years; and I am sorry
almost that I told it him, it not being necessary, nor may be convenient
to have it known. Here he showed me the petition he had sent to the King