Saturday 17 December 1664
Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning. At noon I to the ‘Change, and there, among others, had my first meeting with Mr. L’Estrange, who hath endeavoured several times to speak with me. It is to get, now and then, some newes of me, which I shall, as I see cause, give him. He is a man of fine conversation, I think, but I am sure most courtly and full of compliments. Thence home to dinner, and then come the looking-glass man to set up the looking-glass I bought yesterday, in my dining-room, and very handsome it is. So abroad by coach to White Hall, and there to the Committee of Tangier, and then the Fishing. Mr. Povy did in discourse give me a rub about my late bill for money that I did get of him, which vexed me and stuck in my mind all this evening, though I know very well how to cleare myself at the worst. So home and to my office, where late, and then home to bed. Mighty talke there is of this Comet that is seen a’nights; and the King and Queene did sit up last night to see it, and did, it seems. And to-night I thought to have done so too; but it is cloudy, and so no stars appear. But I will endeavour it. Mr. Gray did tell me to-night, for certain, that the Dutch, as high as they seem, do begin to buckle; and that one man in this Kingdom did tell the King that he is offered 40,000l. to make a peace, and others have been offered money also. It seems the taking of their Bourdeaux fleete thus, arose from a printed Gazette of the Dutch’s boasting of fighting, and having beaten the English: in confidence whereof (it coming to Bourdeaux), all the fleete comes out, and so falls into our hands.