Up, and to the Office, where all the morning. At noon home to dinner, and then to the Office again, where we met about some business of D. Gawden’s till candle-light; and then, as late as it was, I down to Redriffe, and so walked by moonlight to Deptford, where I have not been a great while, and my business I did there was only to walk up and down above la casa of Bagwell, but could not see her, it being my intent to have spent a little time con her, she being newly come from her husband; but I did lose my labour, and so walked back again, but with pleasure by the walk, and I had the sport to see two boys swear, and stamp, and fret, for not being able to get their horse over a stile and ditch, one of them swearing and cursing most bitterly; and I would fain, in revenge, have persuaded him to have drove his horse through the ditch, by which I believe he would have stuck there. But the horse would not be drove, and so they were forced to go back again, and so I walked away homeward, and there reading all the evening, and so to bed. This afternoon my Lord Anglesey tells us that it is voted in Council to have a fleete of 50 ships out; but it is only a disguise for the Parliament to get some money by; but it will not take, I believe, and if it did, I do not think it will be such as he will get any of, nor such as will enable us to set out such a fleete.
in noon light the late moon
two boys cursing a ditch
and I in my ship disguise
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 15 January 1668.