In the morning Mr Burfield and I settled the accounts as under: I paid him for John Streeter…37/6, in full for 1 year’s rent due at Lady Day, 1756, and Thomas Durrant paid him in cash 2.15.8 and by land tax receipts £1 and by bills etc. for repairs 6.4.4, which together makes £10 and was in full for 2½ years’ rent due from his father at Lady Day last. Then Mr Burfield and I treated of Burrage’s affair and settled it as under: As there were 2½ years’ rent due from Burrage, Mr Burfield agreed to abate the half-year if I would agree to pay or give security for the 2 years’, which I accordingly did by paying him in cash today 2.7.6 and by giving him my note of hand payable at Easter next for the sum of 2.7.6, which together makes the sum of 4.15.0. When Dame Paris has paid the parish her 40/- as she has agreed, there will upon the whole be 55/- for the parish to pay. I also gave Mr Burfield my note of hand to be answerable to him for the rent of the said house so long as Dame Burrage shall continue to live in it. After this we must walk up to Steyning Town with Mr Burfield where he had us about from one of his friends’ houses to another until we became not very sober. But, however, we got back to Mr Burfield’s and dined there…
After dinner, knowing my wife would be very uneasy if I did not get home tonight, and also that my business would want me, and thinking myself capable to undertake such a journey, I came away, leaving Thomas Durrant there, who actually was past riding, or almost anything else. I arrived at home through the providence of God very safe and well about 7 o’clock. I spent in the whole journey 4/-. To give Mr Burfield his just character in the light wherein he appears to me, he is a very good-tempered man, a kind and affectionate husband, an indulgent and tender parent, benevolent and humane to a great, degree, and one who seems to have a great capacity and judgment in his business. Honesty seemingly is his innate principle. But after all he is a man very much given to drink. When I came home, Dame Durrant was like to tear me to pieces with words for leaving her son behind. But, there, poor woman, she and I were both in one pickle. But however Master Durrant and she and Henry Weller of Eastbourne and Fanny Weller spent the evening at our house when it all came to right with the assistance of 2 or 3 drams of her beloved Nantz [brandy from Nantes].
Rec’d of the gardener at Halland 12 bushels apples and ½ bushel potatoes. Steyning I think is but a small town, though both a borough and market town; there is also a free grammar school there.