have already found out Sir Richard Ford's son to have had a hand in it, which they take to be the same as if the father had done it, and I do believe the father may be as likely to be concerned in it as his son. But I perceive by him they are resolved to find out the bottom of the business if it be possible. By and by I met with Mr. Wren, who tells me that the Duke of York is in as good condition as is possible for a man, in his condition of the smallpox. He, I perceive, is mightily concerned in the business of my Lord Chancellor, the impeachment against whom is gone up to the House of Lords; and great differences there are in the Lords' House about it, and the Lords are very high one against another. Thence home to dinner, and as soon as dinner done I and my wife and Willet to the Duke of York's, house, and there saw the Tempest again, which is very pleasant, and full of so good variety that I cannot be more pleased almost in a comedy, only the seamen's part a little too tedious. Thence home, and there to my chamber, and do begin anew to bind myself to keep my old vows, and among the rest not to see a play till Christmas but once in every other week, and have laid aside L10, which is to be lost to the poor, if I do. This I hope in God will bind me, for I do find myself mightily wronged in my reputation, and indeed in my purse and business, by my late following of my pleasure for so long time as I have done. So to supper and then to bed. This day Mr. Chichly told me, with a seeming trouble, that the House have stopped his son Jack (Sir John) his going to France, that he may be a witness against my Lord Sandwich: which do trouble me, though he can, I think, say little.

14th. At the office close all the morning. At noon, all my clerks with me to dinner, to a venison pasty; and there comes Creed, and dined with me, and he tells me how high the Lords were in the Lords' House about the business of the Chancellor, and that they are not yet agreed to impeach him. After dinner, he and I, and my wife and girl, the latter two to their tailor's, and he and I to the Committee of the Treasury, where I had a hearing, but can get but L6000 for the pay of the garrison, in lieu of above L16,000; and this Alderman Backewell gets remitted there, and I am glad of it. Thence by coach took up my wife and girl, and so home, and set down Creed at Arundell House, going to the Royal Society, whither I would be glad to go, but cannot. Thence home, and to the Office, where about my letters, and so home to supper, and to bed, my eyes being bad again; and by this means, the nights, now-a-days, do become very long to me, longer than I can sleep out.

15th. Up, and to Alderman Backewell's

[Edward Backwell, goldsmith and alderman of the City of London. He was a man of considerable wealth during the Commonwealth. After the Restoration he negotiated Charles II.'s principal money transactions. He was M.P. for Wendover in the parliament of 1679, and in the Oxford parliament of 1680. According to the writer of the life in the "Diet. of Nat. Biog. "his heirs did not ultimately suffer any pecuniary loss by the closure of the Exchequer. Mr. Hilton Price stated that Backwell removed to Holland in 1676, and died therein 1679; but this is disproved by the pedigree in Lipscomb's "Hist. of Bucks," where the date of his death is given as 1683, as well as by the fact that he sat for Wendover in 1679 and 1680, as stated above.]

and there discoursed with him about the remitting of this L6000 to Tangier, which he hath promised to do by the first post, and that will be by Monday next, the 18th, and he and I agreed that I would take notice of it that so he may be found to have done his best upon the desire of the Lords Commissioners. From this we went to discourse of his condition, and he with some vain glory told me that the business of Sheernesse did make him quite mad, and indeed might well have undone him; but yet that he did the very next day pay here and got bills to answer his promise to the King for the Swedes Embassadors (who were then doing our business at the treaty at Breda) L7000, and did promise the Bankers there, that if they would draw upon him all that he had of theirs and L10,000 more, he would answer it. He told me that Serjeant Maynard come to him for a sum of money that he had in his hands of his, and so did many others, and his answer was, What countrymen are you? And when they told him, why then, says he, here is a tally upon the Receiver of your country for so [much], and to yours for so much, and did offer to lay by tallies to the full value of all that he owed in the world, and L40,000 more for the security thereof, and not to touch a penny of his own till the full of what he owed was paid, which so pleased every body that he hath mastered all, so that he hath lent the Commissioners of the Treasury above L40,000 in money since that business, and did this morning offer to a lady who come to give him notice that she should need her money L3000, in twenty days, he bid her if she pleased send for it to-day and she should have it. Which is a very great thing, and will make them greater than ever they were, I am apt to think, in some time. Thence to Westminster, and there I walked with several, and do hear that there is to be a conference between the two Houses today; so I stayed: and it was only to tell the Commons that the Lords cannot agree to the confining or sequestring of the Earle of Clarendon from the Parliament, forasmuch as they do not specify any particular crime which they lay upon him and call Treason. This the House did receive, and so parted: at which, I hear, the Commons are like to grow very high, and will insist upon their privileges, and the Lords will own theirs, though the Duke of Buckingham, Bristoll, and others, have been very high in the House of Lords to have had him committed. This is likely to breed ill blood. Thence I away home, calling at my mercer's and tailor's, and there find, as I expected, Mr. Caesar and little Pelham Humphreys, lately returned from France, and is an absolute Monsieur, as full of form, and confidence, and vanity, and disparages everything, and everybody's skill but his own. The truth is, every body says he is very able, but to hear how he laughs at all the King's musick here, as Blagrave and others, that they cannot keep time nor tune, nor understand anything; and that Grebus, the Frenchman, the King's master of the musick, how he understands nothing, nor can play on any instrument, and so cannot compose: and that he will give him a lift out of his place; and that he and the King are mighty great! and that he hath already spoke to the King of Grebus would make a man piss. I had a good dinner for them, as a venison pasty and some fowl, and after dinner we did play, he on the theorbo. Mr. Caesar on his French lute, and I on the viol, but made but mean musique, nor do I see that this Frenchman do so much wonders on the theorbo, but without question he is a good musician, but his vanity do offend me. They gone, towards night, I to the office awhile, and then home and to my chamber, where busy till by and by comes Mr. Moore, and he staid and supped and talked with me about many things, and tells me his great fear that all things will go to ruin among us, for that the King hath, as he says Sir Thomas Crew told him, been heard to say that the quarrel is not between my Lord Chancellor and him, but his brother and him; which will make sad work among us if that be once promoted, as to be sure it will, Buckingham and Bristoll being now the only counsel the King follows, so as Arlington and Coventry are come to signify little. He tells me they are likely to fall upon my Lord Sandwich; but, for my part, sometimes I am apt to think they cannot do him much harm, he telling me that there is no great fear of the business of Resumption! By and by, I got him to read part of my Lord Cooke's chapter of treason, which is mighty