Balancing act

Up betimes and walked to Mr. Povy’s, and there, not without some few troublesome questions of his, I got a note, and went and received 117l. 5s. of Alderman Viner upon my pretended freight of the “William” for Tangier, which overbears me on one side with joy and on the other to think of my condition if I shall be called into examination about it, and (though in strictness it is due) not be able to give a good account of it.
Home with it, and there comes Captain Taylor to me, and he and I did set even the business of the ship Union lately gone for Tangier, wherein I hope to get 50l. more, for all which the Lord be praised.
At noon home to dinner, Mr. Hunt and his wife with us, and very pleasant. Then in the afternoon I carried them home by coach, and I to Westminster Hall, and thence to Gervas’s, and there find I cannot prevail with Jane to go forth with me, but though I took a good occasion of going to the Trumpet she declined coming, which vexed me. ‘Je avait grande envie envers elle, avec vrai amour et passion’.
Thence home and to my office till one in the morning, setting to rights in writing this day’s two accounts of Povy and Taylor, and then quietly to bed.
This day I had several letters from several places, of our bringing in great numbers of Dutch ships.

I walk with questions
a freight of bears

on one side joy
and on the other Trump


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 9 December 1664.

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