which, at his so urging me, I did, and so fell to talk of his business,
and so parted. I do not know of any manner of kindness I have done him
this last year, nor did expect any thing. It was therefore very welcome
to me, but yet I was not fully satisfied in my taking it, because of my
submitting myself to the having it objected against me hereafter, and the
rather because this morning Jacke Fen come and shewed me an order from the
Commissioners of Accounts, wherein they demand of him an account upon oath
of all the sums of money that have been by him defalked or taken from any
man since their time, of enquiry upon any payments, and if this should, as
it is to be feared, come to be done to us, I know not what I shall then
do, but I shall take counsel upon it. At noon by coach towards
Westminster, and met my Lord Brouncker, and W. Pen, and Sir T. Harvey, in
King's Street, coming away from the Parliament House; and so I to them,
and to the French ordinary, at the Blue Bells, in Lincolne's Inn Fields,
and there dined and talked. And, among other things, they tell me how the
House this day is still as backward for giving any money as ever, and do
declare they will first have an account of the disposals of the last
Poll-bill, and eleven months' tax: and it is pretty odde that the very
first sum mentioned in the account brought in by Sir Robert Long, of the
disposal of the Poll-bill money, is L5000 to my Lord Arlington for
intelligence; which was mighty unseasonable, so soon after they had so
much cried out against his want of intelligence. The King do also own but
L250,000, or thereabouts, yet paid on the Poll-bill, and that he hath
charged L350,000 upon it. This makes them mad; for that the former
Poll-bill, that was so much less in its extent than the last, which took
in all sexes and qualities, did come to L350,000. Upon the whole, I
perceive they are like to do nothing in this matter to please the King, or
relieve the State, be the case never so pressing; and, therefore, it is
thought by a great many that the King cannot be worse if he should
dissolve them: but there is nobody dares advise it, nor do he consider any