26th. My Lord dined at his lodgings all alone to-day. I went to
Secretary Nicholas

[Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State to Charles I. and II.
He was dismissed from his office through the intrigues of Lady
Castlemaine in 1663. He died 1669, aged seventy-seven.]

to carry him my Lord's resolutions about his title, which he had chosen,
and that is Portsmouth.

[Montagu changed his mind, and ultimately took his title from the
town of Sandwich, leaving that of Portsmouth for the use of a King's
mistress.]

I met with Mr. Throgmorton, a merchant, who went with me to the old Three
Tuns, at Charing Cross, who did give me five pieces of gold for to do him
a small piece of service about a convoy to Bilbo, which I did. In the
afternoon, one Mr. Watts came to me, a merchant, to offer me L500 if I
would desist from the Clerk of the Acts place. I pray God direct me in
what I do herein. Went to my house, where I found my father, and carried
him and my wife to Whitefriars, and myself to Puddlewharf, to the
Wardrobe, to Mr. Townsend, who went with me to Backwell, the goldsmith's,
and there we chose L100 worth of plate for my Lord to give Secretary
Nicholas. Back and staid at my father's, and so home to bed.

27th. With my Lord to the Duke, where he spoke to Mr. Coventry to
despatch my business of the Acts, in which place every body gives me joy,
as if I were in it, which God send.