tells me that newes is come that our ship Resolution is burnt, and that we had sunke four or five of the enemy's ships. To Sir W. Coventry's lodging, and there he showed me Captain Talbot's letter, wherein he says that the fight begun on the 25th; that our White squadron begun with one of the Dutch squadrons, and then the Red with another, so hot that we put them both to giving way, and so they continued in pursuit all the day, and as long as he stayed with them: that the Blue fell to the Zealand squadron; and after a long dispute, he against two or three great ships, he received eight or nine dangerous shots, and so came away; and says, he saw the Resolution burned by one of their fire-ships, and four or five of the enemy's. But says that two or three of our great ships were in danger of being fired by our owne fire-ships, which Sir W. Coventry nor I cannot understand. But upon the whole, he and I walked two or three turns in the Parke under the great trees, and do doubt that this gallant is come away a little too soon, having lost never a mast nor sayle. And then we did begin to discourse of the young gentlemen captains, which he was very free with me in speaking his mind of the unruliness of them; and what a losse the King hath of his old men, and now of this Hannam, of the Resolution, if he be dead, and that there is but few old sober men in the fleete and if these few of the Flags that are so should die, he fears some other gentlemen-captains will get in, and then what a council we shall have, God knows. He told me how he is disturbed to hear the commanders at sea called cowards here on shore, and that he was yesterday concerned publiquely at a dinner to defend them, against somebody that said that not above twenty of them fought as they should do, and indeed it is derived from the Duke of Albemarle himself who wrote so to the King and Duke,

and that he told them how they fought four days, two of them with great disadvantage. The Count de Guiche,' who was on board De Ruyter, writing his narrative home in French of the fight, do lay all the honour that may be upon the English courage above the Dutch, and that he himself (Sir W. Coventry) was sent down from the King and Duke of York after the fight, to pray them to spare none that they thought had not done their parts, and that they have removed but four, whereof Du Tell is one, of whom he would say nothing; but, it seems, the Duke of York hath been much displeased at his removal, and hath now taken him into his service, which is a plain affront to the Duke of Albemarle; and two of the others, Sir W. Coventry did speake very slenderly of their faults. Only the last, which was old Teddiman, he says, is in fault, and hath little to excuse himself with; and that, therefore, we should not be forward in condemning men of want of courage, when the Generalls, who are both men of metal, and hate cowards, and had the sense of our ill successe upon them (and by the way must either let the world thinke it was the miscarriage of the Captains or their owne conduct) have thought fit to remove no more of them, when desired by the King and Duke of York to do it, without respect to any favour any of them can pretend to in either of them. At last we concluded that we never can hope to beat the Dutch with such advantage as now in number and force and a fleete in want of nothing, and he has often repeated now and at other times industriously that

1 Eldest son of the Duke de Grammont.

2 As Yeoman of the Cellar and Cup-bearer. This most improper step of the Duke of York is alluded to in the "Poems on State Affairs," vol. i. p. 36, ed. 1703:—

"Cashier the memory of Dutell, raised up

To taste, instead of death, his Highness' cup."

many of the Captains have declared that they want nothing, and again, that they did lie ten days together at the Nore without demanding of any thing in the world but men, and of them they afterward, when they went away, the generalls themselves acknowledge that they have permitted several ships to carry supernumeraries, but that if we do not speede well, we must then play small games and spoile their trade in small parties. And so we parted, and I, meeting Creed in the Parke again, did take him by coach and to Islington, thinking to have met my Lady Pen and wife, but they were gone, so we eat and drank and away back, setting him down in Cheapside and I home, and there after a little while making of my tune, "It is decreed," to bed.

28th. Up, and to the office, where no more newes of the fleete than was yesterday. Here we sat and at noon to dinner to the Pope's Head, where my Lord Brouncker and his mistresse dined and Commissioner Pett, Dr. Charleton,' and myself, entertained with a venison pasty by Sir W. Warren. Here very pretty discourse of Dr. Charleton's, concerning Nature's fashioning every creature's teeth according to the food she intends them; and that men's, it is plain, was not for flesh, but for fruit, and that he can at any time tell the food of a beast unknown by the teeth. My Lord Brouncker made one or two objections to it that creatures find their food proper for their teeth rather than that the teeth were fitted for the food, but the Doctor, I think, did well observe that creatures do naturally and from the first, before they have had experience to try, do love such a food rather than another, and that all children love fruit, and none brought to flesh, but against

I Walter Charleton, a native of Somersetshire, physician in ordinary to Charles II. during his exile and after the Restoration. He was a learned and voluminous author, and died in 1707.

their wills at first. Thence with my Lord to his coach-house, and there put in his six horses into his coach, and he and I alone to Highgate. All the way going and coming I learning of him the principles of Optics, and what it is that makes an object seem less or bigger and how much distance do lessen an object and that it is not the eye at all, or any rule in optics, that can tell distance, but it is only an act of reason comparing of one mark with another, which did both please and inform me mightily. Being come thither we went to my Lord Lauderdale's house' to speake with him, about getting a man at Leith to joyne with one we employ to buy some prize goods for the King; we find him and his lady and some Scotch people at supper. Pretty odd company; though my Lord Brouncker tells me, my Lord Lauderdale is a man of mighty good reason and judgement. But at supper there played one of their servants upon the viallin some Scotch tunes only; several, and the best of their country, as they seemed to esteem them, by their praising and admiring them but, Lord! the strangest ayre that ever I heard in my life, and all of one cast. strange to hear my Lord Lauderdale say himself that he had rather hear a cat mew, than the best musique in the world; and the better the musique, the more sicke it makes him; and that of all instruments, he hates the lute most, and next to that, the baggpipe. Thence back with my Lord to his house, all the way good discourse, informing myself about optics still, and there left him and by a hackney home, and after writing three or four letters, home to supper and to bed.

But

1 Lord Lauderdale's house was on the eastern part of Highgate Hill, and is still known by that name. It was lately inhabited by Lord Westbury; it is now the residence of James Yates, Esq., of Liverpool.

29th. (Lord's day.) All the morning in my chamber making up my accounts in my book with my father and brother and stating them. Towards noon before sermon was done at church comes newes by a letter to Sir W. Batten, to my hand, of the late fight, which I sent to his house, he at church. But, Lord! with what impatience I staid till sermon was done, to know the issue of the fight, with a thousand hopes and fears and thoughts about the consequences of either. At last sermon is done and he came home, and the bells immediately rung soon as the church was done. But coming to Sir W. Batten to know the newes, his letter said nothing of it; but all the towne is full of a victory. By and by a letter from Sir W. Coventry tells me that we have the victory. Beat them into the Weelings; had taken two of their great ships; but by the orders of the Generalls they are burned. This being, methought, but a poor result after the fighting of two so great fleetes, and four days having no tidings of them, I was still impatient; but could know no more. So away home to dinner, where Mr. Spong and Reeves dined with me by invitation. After dinner to our business of my microscope to be shown some of the observables of that, and then down to my office to looke in a darke room with my glasse and tube, and most excellently things appeared indeed beyond imagination. This was our worke all the afternoon trying the several glasses and several objects, among others, one of my plates where the lines appeared so very plain that it is not possible to thinke how plain it was done. Thence satisfied exceedingly with all this we home and to discourse many pretty things and then they away and I to Şir W. Batten, where the Lieutenant of the Tower was, and Sir John

1 Sir John Robinson.