The Diary Of John Evelyn Vol-2

1672 JOHN EVELYN

24th May, 1672. To London and gave his Majesty an
account of my journey, and that I had put all things in
readiness upon all events, and so returned home suffi-
ciently wearied.

3ist May, 1672. I received another command to repair
to the seaside; so I went to Rochester, where I found
many wounded, sick, and prisoners, newly put on shore
after the engagement on the 28th, in which the Earl of
Sandwich, that incomparable person and my particular
friend, and divers more whom I loved, were lost. My
Lord (who was Admiral of the Blue) was in the (<Prince,J>
which was burnt, one of the best men-of-war that ever
spread canvas on the sea. There were lost with this
brave man, a son of Sir Charles Cotterell (Master of the
Ceremonies), and a son of Sir Charles Harbord (his
Majesty's Surveyor-General), two valiant and most ac-
complished youths, full of virtue and courage, who might
have saved themselves; but chose to perish with my
Lord, whom they honored and loved above their own
lives,

Here, I cannot but make some reflections on things
past. It was not above a day or two that going to
Whitehall to take leave of his Lordship, who had his
lodgings in the Privy-Garden, shaking [me by the hand
he bid me good-by, and said he thought he would see
me no more, and I saw, to my thinking, something bod-
ing in his countenance; "No/ says he, <(they will not
have me live. Had I lost a fleet (meaning on his return
from Bergen when he took the East India prize ) I should
have fared better; but, be as it pleases God — I must do
something, I know not what, to save my reputation.»
Something to this effect, he had hinted to me; thus I took
my leave. I well remember that the Duke of Albemarle,
and my now Lord Clifford, had, I know not why, no
great opinion of his courage, because, in former conflicts,
being an able and experienced seaman (which neither
of them were ), lie always brought off his Majesty's ships
without loss, though not without as many marks of true
courage as the stoutest of them; and I am a witness that,
in the late war, his own ship was pierced like a colander.
But the business was, he was utterly against this war
from the beginning, and abhorred the attacking of the
Smyrna fleet; he did not favor the heady expedition of
6e, t} Canter-