It is scarcely a matter for surprise that those historians who were the first to appreciate the great Puritan movement, so long under a cloud, should have yielded to the temptation of over-emphasizing the contrast between the vigour and comparative purity of government during the Interregnum and its nervelessness and corruption under the Younger Stuarts. That some such contrast exists it is impossible to deny. The Commonwealth navy was on the whole well managed, and every reader of Pepys's Diary knows that he was disposed to regret in private the administrative successes of the treasonable times. 3 June, 1667: 'To Spring Garden, and there eat and drank a little, and then to walk up and down the garden, reflecting upon the bad management of things now, compared with what it was in the late rebellious times, when men, some for fear and some for religion, minded their business, which none now do, by being void of both.' Or again, 4 September, 1668: 'The business of abusing the Puritans begins to grow stale and of no use, they being the people that at last will be found the wisest.' But it is possible, while dwelling upon a moral contrast, to ignore the difference in the financial situation. The virtuous Puritan colonels who controlled the navy under the Commonwealth had command of large financial resources, for confiscations and Royalist compositions were very productive, and the governments of the Interregnum could apply to the raising of taxes irresistible military force. As far as the compositions went, they were, however, living upon capital, and when this was exhausted, the pressure of financial difficulties soon began to be felt. The maintenance of the great professional army came to be a burden too heavy for the resources of the country as they stood in that day, and the navy suffered from the competition of the army for the available funds. The disease usually assigned to the Restoration period declared itself before the Restoration took place, and when the King came back he found the navy already deep in debt. In 1659 nearly half a million was due on account of wages alone, and the total debt must have been over three-quarters of a million[123]. An official report of July, 1659, estimated the outgoings at £20,000 a week, but pointed out that 'since May 31 has not been received above £8000 a week.'[124] It must be remembered that with 17th century money values these figures are very much larger than they look, and as the State had not yet invented funding debt, and so charging it on posterity, its position was that of an extravagant private person. Thus the naval administrators of the Restoration were succeeding to a bankrupt estate, and in the Diary Pepys strikes a note of despair. 31 July, 1660: the navy 'is in very sad condition, and money must be raised for it.' 11 June, 1661: 'now the credit of the Office is brought so low, that none will sell us anything without our personal security given for the same.' 31 August, 1661: 'we are at our Office quiet, only for lack of money all things go to rack.' 30 September, 1661: 'the want of money puts all things, and above all the Navy, out of order.' 28 June, 1662: 'God knows, the King is not able to set out five ships at this present without great difficulty, we neither having money, credit, nor stores.'

The same difficulties were felt before, during, and after the Second Dutch War. In September, 1664, when war was impending, Commissioner Pett tried to buy tallow and candles for the navy at Maidstone, but found the country 'so shy' that they refused to deal[125]. In January, 1666, the Commissioner at Portsmouth wrote that all men distrust London pay[126]. Nearly half the letters to the Navy Board calendared for 1665-6 refer to the difficulties experienced by government agents in obtaining supplies[127]. In this way bargains were lost for want of ready money[128], and where credit was obtained, enormous prices had to be paid[129]. The hardships to private persons were intolerable. A firm of slop-sellers who had supplied goods to the value of £24,800 during the last two years, and had received only £800, would shortly be ruined in their estates and families[130]. A Bristol shipbuilder writes: 'I have so disabled myself in the relief of poor workmen that I am now out of a capacity of relieving mine own family: I have disbursed and engaged for more than I am worth.'[131] The Barber Surgeons' Company claim £1,496. 6s. 10d., long unpaid, for filling medicine chests, and complain of the opprobrious language they receive from surgeons who can get no pay[132]; and a certain poor widow, a creditor of the government, is in a most deplorable condition, without a stick of wood or coals to lay on the fire, and owing money to about fifteen people as poor as herself, who torment her daily[133].

The total annual charge of the navy in time of peace is not easy to calculate. On 18 February, 1663[134], Pepys himself estimated 'the true charge of the Navy,' since the King's coming in to Christmas last, to have been 'after the rate of £374,743 a year,' but it is not clear what this figure includes. Perhaps the pre-war expenditure may be put at not far short of £400,000. In a letter to Sir Philip Warwick, dated 14 March, 1666[135], he supplies materials for estimating expenditure in time of war. So enormous were the arrears that the sum of £2,312,876 would be needed to pay the fleet and yards to 1 August, 1665, to clear off the arrears of the Victualler and provide victuals for the current year, to finish ten new ships that had been ordered, and to meet wear and tear and wages for the first ten months of 1666. Towards this the total funds available, including a Parliamentary grant of £1,250,000 made in October, 1665, amounted to £1,498,483. Thus there was a deficit of £814,393. But to this would have to be added other charges not included in the first estimate—principally wear and tear and wages for the last two months of 1666, arrears of wages, and other debts, which would increase the deficit to £1,277,161, over and above 'the whole expense of the Office of the Ordnance.' In other words, the funds available for the navy in March, 1666, in the second year of the war, were scarcely more than half its probable requirements[136]. Nevertheless, Pepys derived great consolation from a calculation which he had made of the cost of the First Dutch War in 1653, whereby it appeared that 'the State's charge then seems to have exceeded the King's for the same service and time by £171,785.'[137] This is the justification of a note in the Diary of 16 March, 1669: 'Upon the whole do find that the late times in all their management were not more husbandly than we.' To meet the situation recourse was again had to Parliament, and in October, 1666, the Commons voted £1,800,000, although their suspicion that the money was being wasted led to the appointment of that Commission of Public Accounts which was to give Pepys and his colleagues infinite trouble[138], and was to lay the foundation of Parliamentary enquiry into the proceedings of the executive.

As soon as the war came to an end, the higher authorities began to consider schemes of retrenchment in the navy. A committee appointed 29 July, 1667, by Order in Council, to consider the King's expenses called for a report upon the cost of the navy, and the Duke of York put forward some preliminary suggestions[139], the most important being a reduction of certain establishments and the closing of the dockyard at Harwich. He also suggested a reduction in the number of the Commissioners from ten to six, or at most seven, although he was disposed to resist any great reduction in their salaries on the ground that these should be sufficient to make the Principal Officers and Commissioners 'value their employments, and not subject them to a necessity of base compliances with others to the King's prejudice, by which to get one shilling to himself he must lose ten to the King, and when he shall have once subjected himself to an inferior pleasure by such a falsehood, he never more dares act the part of a good officer, being by his former guilt become a slave to his inferior.' This argument, while it served incidentally to protect Pepys's emoluments, is not a bad statement of the case for a living wage as an antidote to corruption. The scheme eventually adopted, suggested by Sir William Coventry, aimed at a reduction of peace expenditure to £200,000 a year[140], but the goal was never reached, for the naval expenditure of the next two or three years was not, as a matter of fact, limited to the £200,000 a year proposed, nor was ready money provided—an essential condition of the scheme. The policy of retrenchment on a great scale would have to be carried on for a long time before it could affect the accumulated masses of the navy debt[141], and there is abundant evidence of continued financial stringency after the war as well as before it. This carried its nemesis into the Third Dutch War. The comparative failure of the naval operations of 1673 was due to the fact that the fleet had been sent out insufficiently manned and equipped; and the want of a reserve of stores and of men and materials for refitting occasioned the loss of nearly six weeks in the best season of the year[142].

As soon as the Third Dutch War came to an end in February, 1674, another period of feverish retrenchment set in, and an attempt was made 'to lessen the growing charge in the navy, towards which no one particular seems more to conduce than that of reducing the number of the persons employed therein, both at sea and in the yards.'[143] Other economies were also practised. Ships as they came in were paid off and laid up[144], and it was decided to undertake no new works 'until his Majesty hath in some measure got over the debt which remains to him upon the old.'[145] Meanwhile the official correspondence contains frequent references to the shortness of money. For instance, in January, 1674, the Swan was delayed at Plymouth 'from the unwillingness of the tradesmen to trust his Majesty further'[146]; and in December, 1677, Pepys reports from Sir John Kempthorne that 'the brewer at Portsmouth doth absolutely declare that he will not provide any beer for the Rupert and Centurion till he is better assured of his payment than he now is.'[147] At the beginning of 1678 the situation was somewhat relieved by the Parliamentary vote for preparations against France, but this improvement was of short duration, and in December we find Pepys referring to one of the most wasteful consequences of a want of money—'that mighty charge which has so long lain upon our hands for want of money wherewith to discharge those of the ships which remain yet unpaid off.'[148]

In spite of the frequent references to want of funds scattered up and down the official correspondence, the financial position of the navy greatly improved in the later years of the Restoration period. At Lady Day, 1686, the debts of the Navy Office were reckoned at £171,836. 2s. 9d.—a remarkable reduction on the enormous totals of 1666[149]. After the accession of James II no less than £305,806 was paid by the Treasurer of the Navy on account of debts incurred in Charles II's reign[150], so it is not surprising to find that, both in the closing years of Charles II and the earlier years of James II, money was still difficult to get, and the old complaints recur although in a less aggravated form.

Bearing in mind these facts about finance, let us pass on to consider some of their practical results.

During the period from 1660 to 1688 the operations of the navy were grievously hampered by the deficiency of men, both in the dockyards and at sea; and this deficiency was mainly, if not entirely, due to the want of pay.

The state of things during the Second Dutch War was appalling. The Diary contains pitiable stories of poor seamen starving in the streets because there was no money to pay their wages. 7 October, 1665: 'Did business, though not much, at the Office; because of the horrible crowd and lamentable moan of the poor seamen that lie starving in the streets for lack of money, which do trouble and perplex me to the heart; and more at noon when we were to go through them, for then a whole hundred of them followed us; some cursing, some swearing, and some praying to us.'[151] We hear of wages nine months[152], twenty-two[153], twenty-six, thirty-four[154], and even fifty-two[155] months in arrear. One captain with a breezy style complains that for want of pay 'instead of a young commander, he is rendered an old beggar.'[156] The crews of two ships petition the Navy Board to order them their pay 'that their families may not be altogether starved in the streets, and themselves go like heathens, having nothing to cover their nakedness.'[157] The Commissioner at Portsmouth writes of workmen in the yard there, that they are turned out of doors by their landlords, and perish more like dogs than men[158].

Naturally enough, this state of things affected discipline. The crews of the Little Victory and the Pearl at Hull mutinied for want of pay, and refused to weigh anchor[159], and in the yards the workmen gave a great deal of trouble. The Chatham shipwrights and caulkers, to whom two years' wages were owing, marched up to London to appeal to the Navy Board, as 'their families are denied trust and cannot subsist,' and under this pressure we are told that arrangements were made 'to pay off some of the most disorderly.'[160] At Chatham the Commissioner writes that he is almost torn to pieces by the workmen of the yard for their weekly pay[161]. Sir John Mennes writes from Portsmouth on 14 July, 1665, for money to be sent immediately to stop 'the bawlings and impatience of these people, especially of their wives, whose tongues are as foul as the daughters of Billingsgate.'[162] Apparently the money did not come, and in October the Commissioner was forced to lend the men ten shillings apiece to keep them from mutiny[163]. A fortnight later a mutiny actually broke out, but Commissioner Middleton shewed praiseworthy promptitude in dealing with it. According to his own account, he seized 'a good cudgel' out of the hands of one of the men, and took more pains in the use of it than in any business for the last twelve months. He adds: 'I have not been troubled since.'[164] On 27 October, 1666, the outlook in London was so threatening that the Navy Board applied to the Officers of the Ordnance for 'twelve well-fixed firelocks with a supply of powder and bullet' for the defence of the Navy Office, in view of 'the present great refractoriness and tumultuousness of the seamen.'[165] Nor did the trouble end when peace came, for the financial situation was still difficult. On 11 March, 1671, Jonas Shish wrote from Deptford to the Navy Board: 'The shipwrights and caulkers are very much enraged by reason that their wages is not paid them. The last night the whole street next the King's Yard, both of men and women, was in an uproar, and meeting with Mr Bagwell, my foreman, they fell on him, and it was God's great mercy they had not spoiled him. I was then without the gate at my son's house, and hearing the tumult, I did think how Israel stoned Hadoram that was over the tribute, and King Rehoboam made speed and gat him up to fly to Jerusalem, so I gat speedily into the King's Yard, for I judge if the rude multitude had met with me, I should have had worse measure than my foreman.'[166]

In view of these facts about pay, it is not surprising that it was found difficult to obtain men. In order to man the fleets for service against the Dutch it was necessary to employ the press, and this produced very poor material. Pepys notes in 1666 that men were pressed in London that 'were not liable to it,' 'poor patient labouring men and housekeepers,'[167] and he adds 'it is a great tyranny.' The redoubtable Commissioner Middleton, writing from Portsmouth on 29 March, 1666, tells Pepys that he is ashamed to see such pressed men as are sent from Devonshire—one with the falling sickness and a lame arm; another with dead palsy on one side and not any use of his right arm[168]. A year later he makes similar complaints from Chatham with regard to the pressed men supplied by Watermen's Hall. 'The Masters of Watermen's Hall are good Christians but very knaves; they should be ordered to send down ten or twelve old women to be nurses to the children they send.'[169]

On the outbreak of the Third Dutch War in 1672 the same difficulties recurred, but the complaints are less frequent and less serious, and the condition of things had evidently improved. But ships had still to be manned by pressing, and the quality of the pressed men left much to be desired. For instance, two watermen, pressed in 1673, are described as 'little children, and never at sea before,' who could not be suffered 'to pester the ship.'[170]

'It can never be well in the navy,' wrote Pepys on 5 September, 1680, 'till the poor seamen can be paid once in a year at furthest, and tickets answered like bills of exchange; whereas at this very day ... ships are kept out two or three years, and four of them just now ordered forth again only for want of money, after being brought in to be paid off.'[171] A little later he notes the effect of this upon discipline[172], and comments on the 'unreasonable hardship' entailed by 'the general practice of our navy' 'of paying those ships off first where the least sum clears the most men; those who have served longest, and therefore need their pay most, being postponed to those who have served least.'[173] In a maturer reflection made after his retirement, dated December, 1692, Pepys still places the 'length and badness of the payment of the seaman's wages' first among his 'discouragements.' This, together with 'their ill-usage from commanders, and want of permission to help themselves in intervals of public service by a temporary liberty of earning a penny in the merchant's' are 'discouragements that I cannot think anything can be proposed of temptations of other kinds sufficient to reconcile them to.'[174] Nevertheless, Pepys claimed credit for more punctual payments for the Special Commission of 1686, during the time they held office. 'Not a penny left unpaid,' he writes, 'to any officer, seaman, workman, artificer, or merchant, for any service done in, or commodity delivered to the use of the Navy, either at sea or on shore, within the whole time of this Commission, where the party claiming the same was in the way to receive it.'[175]

In connexion with the seamen something should be said about the organisation for the care of the sick and wounded. The credit of being the first English Government to recognise the obligation of providing for the sick and wounded belongs to the Commonwealth. The principle that the State should provide for those who had suffered in its service was laid down by the Long Parliament in 1642, and an attempt was made to apply it to the case of soldiers wounded in the Civil War[176]. A little later the same principle was applied to seamen, and the idea and the machinery were taken over by the Restoration statesmen. In October, 1664, in view of the impending war with the Dutch, a temporary Commission for the care of Sick and Wounded Seamen on the model of the Commission of 1653 was appointed for the duration of the war, the most active member of it being John Evelyn, the diarist[177]. This Commission was re-appointed in March, 1672, for the Third Dutch War, and the elaborate instructions given to it are to be found in the volume of Naval Precedents in the Pepysian Library[178]. The Commissioners were to distribute the sick and wounded among the hospitals of England, 'thereby to ease his Majesty's charge'; and as soon as this accommodation was exhausted, they were to billet them upon private persons at the King's expense. London, Yarmouth, Ipswich, Southwold, Aldeburgh, Harwich, Chatham, Gravesend, Deal, Dover, Gosport, Southampton, Weymouth, Dartmouth, and Plymouth were specially assigned for the reception of sick and wounded men set ashore from their ships. At these 'places of reception' as they were called, the Commissioners were to appoint an agent, and to provide 'a physician (if need be) and chirurgeon, and nurses, fire, candle, linen, medicaments, and all things necessary,' but in 'as husbandly and thrifty a manner' as might be. The Commission was also charged with the care of prisoners of war, and was instructed to provide for their maintenance on a scale 'not exceeding 5d. per diem for every common seaman and inferior officer, and 12d. per diem for every commission officer.' For a time also it was concerned with awarding gratuities to the 'widows, children, and impotent parents of such as shall be slain in his Majesty's service at sea'; but in 1673 these duties were taken over by another commission, for Widows and Orphans, and a regular scale was established on which gratuities were to be given. Widows of men slain in the service were to receive a gratuity equal to eleven months of their husband's pay, an additional third being allowed to each orphan except those who were married at the time of the father's death. If the deceased left no widow, his mother was to receive the bounty, provided that she was herself a widow, indigent, and over 50 years of age. The bounty to a child was to be allowed to accumulate until it was of an age to be apprenticed. This Commission terminated at the end of the war, and by an order of 21 December, 1674, its functions devolved on the Navy Board.

These arrangements were all admirable upon paper, and the members of the Commissions displayed indefatigable industry, but in this department of affairs as in others the best of schemes were wrecked on the rock of finance. On 30 September, 1665, Evelyn wrote that he had 5000 sick, wounded, and prisoners dying for want of bread and shelter. 'His Majesty's subjects,' he adds, 'die in our sight and at our thresholds without our being able to relieve them, which, with our barbarous exposure of the prisoners to the utmost of sufferings, must needs redound to his Majesty's great dishonour, and to the consequence of losing the hearts of our own people, who are ready to execrate and stone us as we pass.'[179] On 5 June, 1672, the same loyal and humane gentleman wrote in a similar strain from Rochester: 'I have near 600 sick and wounded men in this place, 200 prisoners, and the apprehension of hundreds more.... I hope there will be care to supply my district here with moneys, or else I shall be very miserable, for no poor creature does earn his bread with greater anxiety than I at present.'[180] The moneys did not come, and by the end of the summer some of the localities were becoming restive at the non-payment of arrears. There was a great deal of noise made at Gravesend when the Commissioners of the Navy passed by, and on 27 August Evelyn wrote to Pepys: 'Those cursed people of Gravesend have no bowels, and swear that they will receive not a man more till their arrears are discharged. We are above £2000 indebted in Kent, where our daily charge is £100 for quarters only. Judge by this how comfortable a station I am in.'[181]

When the war came to an end the temporary Commission was withdrawn, and by a warrant from the Lords of the Admiralty dated 28 March, 1674, its duties were handed over to James Pearse, 'chirurgeon-general of his Majesty's navy.'[182] Pearse was a man of business after Pepys's own heart, and he carefully systematised the whole of his functions, reducing them 'into such a method that it is not possible for me (or whomsoever shall succeed me) to wrong his Majesty or injure his subjects.'[183]

'Mariners and soldiers maimed in his Majesty's service at sea' were entitled to relief out of the Chest at Chatham, a fund provided by deducting 6d. a month from each man's pay. Fourpence a month was also deducted for the maintenance of a chaplain, and Pepys explains how the Chest benefited from an arrangement by which all moneys were also assigned to it 'arising out of the seamen's contributions for a chaplain upon ships where (by the remissness or impiety of the commander) no chaplain is provided.'[184] A paper of 24 July, 1685[185], gives the scale of this relief:

... And where any wound or hurt occasions a fracture, contusion, impostumation, or the like, under the loss of a limb, such are viewed by the chirurgeons, and certified to deserve what in their opinions may be a proportionable reward in full satisfaction. And these sorts of hurts frequently accompany the loss of a limb in other parts of the body, for which they have a reward apart from their annual allowance, according to the chirurgeon's discretion.