…About 12:20 Mr Piper came along with his son, and Mrs Fuller, Mrs Burgess, John Piper and myself went and stood for it and gave it the name of William, it being its father’s name. We then came back to our house when John Piper earnestly begged of my wife to go up to dinner with them, protesting he thought his brother to be a strange man, and accordingly she went to Mr Piper’s, where we, together with Mr and Mrs Burgess and Mrs Fuller, dined on a knuckle of pork boiled and greens, a pond currant pudding and a cold duck pie designed as a pasty. We played at brag in the evening. My wife and I lost 3/10. We stayed and supped with the poor old wretch on a loin of veal which was 4 hours in roasting and then in part roasted, a ham of bacon boiled and greens, the cold duck pasty, a hot buttered apple pie and a hot baked rice pudding, in company with Mr and Mrs Porter, Thomas Fuller and his wife, Joseph Fuller and his wife, Mr Burgess and his wife, John Vine and his wife, Joseph Durrant and his wife, Mr French and his wife, Mr Calverley and Miss Tealing and Thomas Diplock. We came home about 2:40, and all sober.
My wife and I gave the nurse and maid 3/-, a very dear night’s entertainment, and I am sure a very bad one. For I never spent an evening with less pleasure in my life; there was not any liquor I suppose worth drinking (though I tasted only some small beer), and that came like drops of blood. To see the niggardly behavior of the poor old man and the railery of the company that was continually a-playing upon the old wretch made it quite irksome, and to me disagreeable. Undoubtedly he deserves very justly to be ridiculed, considering how handsomely he has been entertained at all his neighbors this year, and then the many ungenerous expressions the old man has been known to use concerning the expense of the christening and the too great quantity of liquor the women drank when his wife was brought abed, which confirms me in the opinion I have long since maintained that a thoroughly covetous man is at all time a most unsociable creature and even a pest to society. Not but I would have every man be frugal, but not to the degree of niggerd when he can so well afford it as Mr Piper can. But, however, let him be pitied and go on in his own way, which is to fix all his happiness in accumulating together a heap of sordid drops, and for no other use but only to say or think he is worth so much. Oh, the pernicious consequence of money! What will it not make poor frail mankind do when he has once made it his only aim!
Paid Mr Burgese in cash 3/-, which with the £3 I gave my brother the 17th ult. is in full for the money I received of him the 15th ult. My brother stayed at our house all night.