that if he hath any papers relating to the Navy I might see them, which he
promises me: and so by water home, with great content for what I have this
day found, having got almost as much as I desire of the history of the
Navy, from 1618 to 1642, when the King and Parliament fell out. So home,
and did get my wife to read, and so to supper and to bed.

16th. Up, and to the office, after having visited Sir W. Coventry at the
Tower, and walked with him upon the Stone Walk, alone, till other company
come to him, and had very good discourse with him. At noon home, where my
wife and Jane gone abroad, and Tom, in order to their buying of things for
their wedding, which, upon my discourse the last night, is now resolved to
be done, upon the 26th of this month, the day of my solemnity for my
cutting of the stone, when my cozen Turner must be with us. My wife,
therefore, not at dinner; and comes to me Mr. Evelyn of Deptford, a worthy
good man, and dined with me, but a bad dinner; who is grieved for, and
speaks openly to me his thoughts of, the times, and our ruin approaching;
and all by the folly of the King. His business to me was about some
ground of his, at Deptford, next to the King's yard: and after dinner we
parted. My sister Michell coming also this day to see us, whom I left
there, and I away down by water with W. Hewer to Woolwich, where I have
not been I think more than a year or two, and here I saw, but did not go
on board, my ship "The Jerzy," she lying at the wharf under repair. But
my business was to speak with Ackworth, about some old things and passages
in the Navy, for my information therein, in order to my great business now
of stating the history of the Navy. This I did; and upon the whole do
find that the late times, in all their management, were not more husbandly
than we; and other things of good content to me. His wife was sick, and so
I could not see her. Thence, after seeing Mr. Sheldon, I to Greenwich by
water, and there landed at the King's house, which goes on slow, but is
very pretty.