Pepy's Diary. 29 Nov 1666. "I doubt not of your lordship's hearing of Sir Thomas Clifford's (age 36) succeeding Sir H. Pollard (deceased) in the Comptrollership of the King's house but perhaps our ill, but confirmed, tidings from the Barbadoes may not [have reached you] yet, it coming but yesterday; viz., that about eleven ships, whereof two of the King's, the Hope and Coventry, going thence with men to attack St. Christopher's, were seized by a violent hurricane, and all sunk-two only of thirteen escaping, and those with loss of masts, &c. My Lord Willoughby himself is involved in the disaster, and I think two ships thrown upon an island of the French, and so all the men, to 500, become their prisoners. 'Tis said, too, that eighteen Dutch men-of-war are passed the Channell, in order to meet with our Smyrna ships; and some, I hear, do fright us with the King of Sweden's (age 11) seizing our mast-ships at Gottenburgh. But we have too much ill newes true, to afflict ourselves with what is uncertain. That which I hear from Scotland is, the Duke of York's (age 33) saying, yesterday, that he is confident the Lieutenant-Generall there hath driven them into a pound, somewhere towards the mountains".