Downing (like a perfidious rogue, though the action is good and
of service to the King, yet he cannot with a good conscience do
it) hath taken Okey, Corbet, and Barkestead at Delfe, in Holland,
and sent them home in the Blackmore. [According to Hume, Downing
had once been chaplain to Okey's regiment. John Okey, Miles
Corbet, and John Barkstead, three of the regicides; executed
April 19th following.] Sir W. Pen, talking to me this afternoon
of what a strange thing it is for Downing to do this, he told me
of a speech he made to the Lords States of Holland, telling them
to their faces that he observed that he was not received with the
respect and observance now that he was when he came from the
traitor and rebell Cromwell: by whom, I am sure, he hath got all
he hath in the world,--and they know it too.
14th. Home to dinner. In the afternoon come the German Dr.
Knuffler, to discourse with us about his engine to blow up ships.
We doubted not the matter of fact, it being tried in Cromwell's
time, but the safety of carrying them in ships; but he do tell
us, that when he comes to tell the King his secret, (for none but
the Kings, successively, and their heirs must know it,) it will
appear to be of no danger at all.
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