CHAPTER VIII.

THE NAVY.

Our literature is singularly deficient in accounts of the official history of the navy. There are numerous books containing lives of seamen and the history of naval actions, but little has been written on the management at home. The best account of naval affairs is to be found in the valuable “Tracts” of the stout old sailor Sir William Monson, which are printed in “Churchill’s Voyages.”[188]

Sir William was sent to the Tower in 1616, and his zeal in promoting an inquiry into the state of the navy, contrary to the wishes of the Earl of Nottingham, then Lord High Admiral, is supposed to have been the cause of his trouble.

The establishment of the navy, during a long period of English history, was of a very simple nature. The first admiral by name in England was W. de Leybourne, who was appointed to that office by Edward I., in the year 1286, under the title of “Admiral de la Mer du Roy d’Angleterre,” and the first Lord High Admiral was created by Richard II. about a century afterwards. This word “admiral” was introduced into Europe from the East, and is nothing more than the Arabic amir-al[189] (in which form the article is incorporated with the noun). The intrusive d, however, made its appearance at a very early period. The office of “Clerk of the King’s Ships,” or “of the Navy,” afterwards “Clerk of the Acts of the Navy,” is in all probability a very ancient one, but the first holder of the office whose name Colonel Pasley, R.E.,[190] has met with, is Thomas Roger or Rogiers, who lived in the reigns of Edward IV., Edward V., and Richard III. In the third volume of Pepys’s MS. “Miscellanies” (page 87) is an entry of an order, dated 18th May, 22 Edw. IV. (1482), to the Treasurer and Chamberlain of the Exchequer, to examine and clear the account of “our well beloved Thomas Roger, Esq., Clerk of our Ships.” In Harleian manuscript 433, which is believed to have belonged to Lord Burghley, there is a register of grants passing the Great Seal during the reigns of Edward V. and Richard III., and No. 1690 contains the appointment of “Thomas Rogiers to be clerc of all maner shippes to the King belonging.” It has no date, but is very probably a reappointment by Richard III. on his assumption of the crown.

The navy owes much to Henry VIII., who reconstituted the Admiralty, founded the Trinity House, and established the dockyards at Deptford, Woolwich, and Portsmouth. The origin of the board of “Principal Officers and Commissioners of the Navy,” commonly called in later times “the Navy Board,” dates from his reign. His predecessors had usually themselves managed whatever naval force they possessed, assisted by their Privy Council, and by the officer already alluded to, who was styled “Clerk” or “Keeper” of the King’s ships, but in Henry’s time the rapidly increasing magnitude and importance of the navy rendered a more complete and better organized system of management necessary. To supply this want several new offices were created, and before Henry’s death we find, in addition to the Lord High Admiral and the Clerk of the Ships, a Lieutenant (or Vice-Admiral), a Treasurer, a Comptroller, and a Surveyor of the Navy,[191] as well as a Keeper of the Naval Storehouses at Erith and Deptford.[192] A few years later we meet with a “Master of the Ordnance of the Ships.” This last office, which had been held by Sir William Woodhouse, was granted by Philip and Mary in 1557 to William (afterwards Sir William) Winter in addition to that of Surveyor, to which he had been appointed by Edward VI.[193]

Each of these officers must have received some sort of instructions for his guidance, but no general code of rules for the administration of the navy was framed until after the accession of Elizabeth, who issued, about 1560, a set of regulations for “the Office of the Admiralty and Marine Causes,” with the following preamble:[194]—“Forasmuch as since the erection of the said office by our late dear father Henry VIII., there hath been no certain ordinance established so as every officer in his degree is appointed to his charge: and considering that in these our days our navy is one of the chiefest defences of us and our realm against the malice of any foreign potentate: we have therefore thought good by great advice and deliberation to make certain ordinances and decrees, which our pleasure and express commandment is that all our officers shall on their parts execute and follow as they tender our pleasure, and will answer to the contrary.”

Then follows a list of the several officers at that time forming the Board, viz.:—

1. The Vice-Admiral.
2. The Master of the Ordnance and Surveyor of the Navy: one officer.
3. The Treasurer.
4. The Comptroller.
5. The General Surveyor of the Victuals.
6. The Clerk of the Ships.
7. The Clerk of the Stores.[195]

The officers were to meet at least once a week at the office on Tower Hill, to consult, and take measures for the benefit of the navy, and were further directed to make a monthly report of their proceedings to the Lord Admiral.

The particular instructions which follow are brief, and by no means explicit:—

1. The Master of the Ordnance is to take care to make the wants of his department known to the Lord Admiral in good time, and he is to obtain the signatures of three of his colleagues every quarter to his books and accounts, which are then to be submitted to the Court of Exchequer.

2. The Treasurer is to make no payments except on the warrant of at least two of his colleagues, and his books are to be made up and certified by a similar number of the officers every quarter.

3. The Surveyor-General of the Victuals is to have his issues warranted, and his accounts certified in the same manner. He is to take care always to have in store a sufficient stock of victuals to supply a thousand men at sea for one month at a fortnight’s notice.

4. The Surveyor, Comptroller, Clerk of the Ships, and Clerk of the Stores are to see the Queen’s ships grounded and trimmed from time to time, and to keep them in such order that upon fourteen days’ warning twelve or sixteen sail may be ready for sea, and the rest soon after. They are to make a monthly report of the state of the ships to the Vice-Admiral and the other officers.

5. The Clerk of the Ships is to provide timber and other materials for building and repairing ships.

6. The Clerk of the Stores is to keep a perfect record of receipts and issues: the latter to be made on the warrant of at least two of the officers.

This most interesting and important document is concluded in the following words:—

“Item, our pleasure and commandment is that all our said officers do agree in one consultation, and all such necessary orders as shall be taken amongst them from time to time to be entered in a ledger book for the whole year, to remain on record.

“The assistants not to be accounted any of our head officers, but yet to travel in our courses when they shall be thereunto commanded or appointed by our Lord Admiral or Vice Admiral, or other our officers.

“Item, our mind and pleasure is that every of our said officers shall see into their fellows’ offices, to the intent that when God shall dispose His will upon any of them they living may be able, if we prefer any of them, to receive the same.

“These our ordinances to be read once a quarter amongst our officers, so as thereby every of them may the better understand his duty, and to be safely kept in our Consultation house at Tower Hill.”

We will now return to Sir William Monson, who, in his “Naval Tracts,” answers the question what kind of men are to be chosen for the various offices. He suggests that “the Comptroller’s and Clerk’s places be reduced into one, who should be an experienced clerk, long bred in the office.... Provided always, that besides their experience and abilities to perform the active part of His Majesty’s service, these men be of good substance and esteem in their estates.”

Such a rule as this would have excluded Pepys from the service, as he knew nothing of the navy when he was made Clerk of the Acts. He soon, however, made himself master of his business, and at the time of his death he was esteemed the greatest authority on naval affairs. In illustration of Monson’s recommendation, it may be remarked that in 1585 the two offices of Clerk and Comptroller were held by the same man, William Borough.

The salaries received by the various officers are set down by Monson as follows:—

Although the salary of the Clerk of the Acts is here put at over one hundred pounds, yet the ancient “fee out of the Exchequer,” which was attached to the office, did not amount to more than £33 6s. 8d. per annum, and this sum is specially set forth in Pepys’s patent.

In July, 1660, the salaries of the officers of the navy (with the exception of that of the Treasurer) were advanced, Pepys’s being raised to £350.[197] The salary of the Treasurer remained the same, but this was but a small part of his emoluments, which amounted in all to several thousand pounds a year.[198]

In the Pepysian Library there is preserved the pocket-book of James II., from which I have been allowed to extract the following memorandum of salaries:—

When the Duke of Buckingham was assassinated, in 1628, the office of Lord High Admiral was for the first time put into commission. All the great officers of State were Commissioners, and Edward Nicholas, who had been secretary to Lord Zouch and to the Duke of Buckingham, was appointed Secretary of the Admiralty.

During the Commonwealth both the Admiralty and the Navy Office were administered by bodies of Commissioners. The offices of Comptroller, Surveyor, and Clerk of the Acts were abolished, and although the Treasurer remained, he was not a member of the Navy Board. Robert Blackburne, who was Secretary to most of the Commissions of the Admiralty, entertained Pepys after the Restoration with an account of the doings of the members. He told him that Sir William Penn got promotion by making a pretence of sanctity; and he then mimicked the actions of the Commissioners, who, he affirmed, would ask the admirals and captains respecting certain men, and say with a sigh and a casting up of the eyes, “Such a man fears the Lord;” or, “I hope such a man hath the Spirit of God.”[199]

At the Restoration the Duke of York was appointed Lord High Admiral, and all powers formerly granted to the Admiralty and Navy Board were recalled.[200] By the Duke’s advice a committee was named to consider a plan proposed by himself for the future regulation of the affairs of the navy; and at a court held on July 4th, 1660, three new commissioners (John Lord Berkeley, Sir William Penn, and Peter Pett) were appointed to assist the four principal officers. Pett was to be employed at Chatham dockyard, but the other two had no special duties assigned to them, although their appointment gave them equal power with the original members when they attended at the Board. As there was at this time no half-pay, these appointments were considered as affording a convenient means of granting a comfortable subsistence to an admiral when not at sea. Lord Clarendon strongly disapproved of this innovation, and attributed the idea to Sir William Coventry, who wished to reduce the power and emoluments of the Treasurer.[201]

In January, 1661–62, James Duke of York issued Instructions which were founded on those drawn up by the Earl of Northumberland, Lord High Admiral from 1638 to 1644, and remained in force until the reorganization of the Admiralty at the beginning of the present century.

It is here necessary to stop a moment for the purpose of noticing Pepys’s relation to these Instructions. Before the publication of the “Diary” it was supposed that he was the chief author of the Rules. In the first Report of the Commissioners of Naval Revision (13th June, 1805) it is distinctly stated that he drew them up under the direction of the Duke, and even Lord Braybrooke makes the claim in regard to Pepys’s authorship. This is an error, and Colonel Pasley points out that at the date of the issue of the Regulations Pepys was by no means on intimate terms with James. Even two years later (4th March, 1633–34) he writes, “I never had so much discourse with the Duke before, and till now did ever fear to meet him;” but what really settles the matter is, that under date February 5th, 1661–62, Pepys writes: “Sir G. Carteret, the two Sir Williams, and myself all alone reading of the Duke’s institutions for the settlement of our office, whereof we read as much as concerns our own duties, and left the other officers for another time.” The latter of these important passages was not printed by Lord Braybrooke, and is only to be found in the Rev. Mynors Bright’s transcript.[202]

The Navy Office, as we see from the “Diary,” was by no means a happy family. Each officer was jealous of his fellow, and this jealousy was somewhat fostered by the duties enjoined. Pepys constantly complains of the neglect by his colleagues of their several duties, and when the Duke of York returned from his command at the end of the first great Dutch war, he found the office in the greatest disorder. This caused the preparation of the Diarist’s “great letter” to the Duke, which is referred to in the “Diary,” on November 17th, 1666. A still more important letter, on the same subject, written by Pepys, but purporting to come from the pen of the Duke of York, was not prepared until nearly two years after this.[203] We learn from the “Diary” all the stages of progress of this letter, the effect it produced when read out at the office,[204] and the way in which the officers prepared their answers.[205] In his allusion to this letter, Lord Braybrooke again does some injustice to James, for he writes: “We even find in the ‘Diary,’ as early as 1668, that a long letter of regulation, produced before the Commissioners of the Navy by the Duke of York as his own composition, was entirely written by the Clerk of the Acts.”

Colonel Pasley very justly observes, in commenting on this view of the Lord High Admiral’s position:—“There is nothing unusual or improper in a minister, or head of a department, employing his subordinates to prepare documents for his signature, and in this particular instance it was evidently of importance that the actual author should remain unknown. Not only was Pepys himself most anxious to avoid being known in the matter, but it is obvious that the authority and effect of the reprimand and warning would have been much lessened, if the other members of the Board had been aware that the Duke had no other knowledge of the abuses of the office than what Pepys told him. It seems from the ‘Diary,’ that about 1668 Pepys first obtained the complete confidence of the Duke—a confidence which he always after retained and never abused. It is evident from numerous remarks in his manuscripts that Pepys had the highest respect for James’s opinion in naval matters. In fact, the mutual respect and friendship of these two men was equally honourable to both, and it is a mistake to endeavour to magnify one at the expense of the other.”

The letter referred to is in the British Museum,[206] and as it is of considerable interest in the life of Pepys, it will be worth while to devote a small space to a few notes on its contents.

James refers to his former letter of January 2nd, 1661, sent with the “Instructions,” as well as to that of March 22nd, 1664, and, after some general remarks, he points out the particular duty of each officer, finishing with remarks on their joint duties as a Board. The letter is drawn up in so orderly a manner, and discovers so thorough a knowledge of the details of the office, that there is little cause for surprise that the officers suspected Pepys to be the author. Article by article of the “Instructions” are set down, and following each of them are remarks on the manner in which it had been carried out. It is very amusing to notice the tact with which our Diarist gets over the difficulty of criticizing his own deeds. The Duke is made to say that although he has inquired as to the execution of the office of Clerk of the Acts, he cannot hear of any particular to charge him with failure in his duty, and as he finds that the Clerk had given diligent attendance, he thinks that the duty must have been done well, particularly during the time of the war, when, in spite of the work being greater, the despatch was praiseworthy. Yet he would not express further satisfaction, but would be willing to receive any information of the Clerk’s failures which otherwise might have escaped his knowledge. The officers were informed that an answer was required from each of them within fourteen days. When these answers were received, Pepys set to work to write a reply for the Duke to acknowledge. Matthew Wren, the Duke’s secretary, smoothed down the language of this letter[207] a little, but it still remained a very stinging reprimand. These two letters form, probably, the most complete instance of a severe “wigging” given by the head of an office to his staff.

We will now return to the consideration of the business management of the navy, and it is necessary for us to bear in mind that the offices of the Admiralty and of the Navy Board were quite distinct in their arrangements. The Navy Board formed the Council of the Lord High Admiral, and the Admiralty was, originally, merely his personal office, the locality of which changed with his own change of residence, or that of his secretary. It was at one time in Whitehall, at another in Cannon Row, Westminster; and when Pepys was secretary, it was attached to his house in York Buildings.

When, however, there was a Board of Admiralty in place of a Lord High Admiral, the Admiralty Office became of more importance, and the Navy Office relatively of less.

According to Pepys, there was some talk of putting the office of Lord High Admiral into commission in the year 1668,[208] but it was not so treated until June, 1673, when the Duke of York laid down all his offices. The Commissioners on this occasion were Prince Rupert, the three great officers of State, three dukes, two secretaries, Sir G. Carteret, and Edward Seymour (afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons); and Pepys was the secretary. Before the commission passed the Great Seal, the King did the business through the medium of Pepys.[209]

Lords of the Admiralty were occasionally appointed to assist the Lord High Admiral, or to fill his place while he was abroad. Pepys refers to such Lords on November 14th, 1664, and in March of the following year he remarks: “The best piece of news is, that instead of a great many troublesome Lords, the whole business is to be left with the Duke of Albemarle to act as Admiral.”[210]

These lords were not properly commissioners, as a commission was only appointed by the King when the office of Lord High Admiral was vacant, but they formed a deputation or committee appointed by the Admiral to act as his deputies.

Pepys was with the Duke of York previous to the reinstatement of the latter as Lord High Admiral, he returned to the office with his patron, and he continued secretary until the Revolution, when he retired into private life. On the Duke’s accession to the throne a new board was formed and the navy was again raised to a state of efficiency.

Pepys was Clerk of the Acts from 1660 to 1672, that is, during the whole period of the “Diary,” and three years afterwards. He was succeeded by his clerk, Thomas Hayter, and his brother John Pepys, who held the office jointly. As already stated, Pepys was promoted to be Secretary of the Admiralty in 1672, and continued in office until 1679, when he was again succeeded for a time by Hayter. We know comparatively little of him in the higher office, and it is as Clerk of the Acts that he is familiar to us. With regard to this position it is necessary to bear in mind that the “so-called” clerk, as well as being secretary, was also a member of the Board, and one of the “principal officers.” On one occasion Pepys met Sir G. Carteret, Sir J. Minnes, and Sir W. Batten at Whitehall, and when the King spied them out, he cried, “Here is the Navy Office!”[211]

I have already mentioned that the principal officers were superseded during the Commonwealth. Again, in 1686, they were suspended, and the offices were temporarily placed under a body of equal commissioners.

The Navy Office, where Pepys lived during the whole period over which the “Diary” extends, was situated between Crutched Friars and Seething Lane, with an entrance in each of these places. The ground was originally occupied by a chapel and college attached to the church of Allhallows, Barking, but these buildings were pulled down in the year 1548, and the land was used for some years as a garden plot.

In Elizabeth’s reign, when the celebrated Sir William Wynter, Surveyor of Her Majesty’s Ships, brought home from sea much plunder of merchants’ goods, a storehouse of timber and brick was raised on this site for their reception. In course of time the storehouse made way for the Navy Office, a rather extensive building, in which the civil business of the navy was transacted until the last quarter of the eighteenth century. On July 4th, 1660, Pepys went with Commissioner Pett to view the houses, and was very pleased with them, but he feared that the more influential officers would shuffle him out of his rights. Two days afterwards, however, he went with Mr. Coventry and Sir G. Carteret to take possession of the place; still, although his mind was a little cheered, his hopes were not great. On July 9th, he began to sign bills in his office, and on the 18th he records the fact that he dined in his own apartments.

Pepys’s house was a part of the Seething Lane front, and that occupied by Sir William Penn was on the north side of the garden, a house which was afterwards occupied by Lord Brouncker.[212] When the new Somerset House was finished, the Navy Office was removed there, and the old buildings in the city were sold and destroyed.

In course of time the work of the navy could not be properly carried out with the old machinery, and, at last, the Admiralty Office, which had largely grown in importance, swallowed up the Navy Office. By an Act of Parliament, 2 William IV., the principal officers and commissioners of the navy were abolished, as were also the commissioners for victualling the navy; and all power and authority was vested in the Admiralty.

I have attempted to give in a few pages as clear an account as possible of the kind of machinery by which the navy was governed, and I now propose to pass rapidly in review a few of the points raised by Pepys. To do more than glance at some of these would require a volume. The “Diary” is filled with information respecting the office and the petty squabbles of the officers, and we obtain from it a gloomy notion of the condition of the navy. In fact, it would be hardly possible to believe the wretched details if we had them from a less trustworthy authority. The whole system of money-getting was unsatisfactory in the extreme, and the officers of the navy were often expected to perform the task of making bricks without straw. The Treasurer, not being able to get money from the Treasury, floated bills, and these were often in very bad repute. We read in the “Diary,” that on August 31st, 1661, the bills were offered to be sold on the Exchange at 10 per cent. loss; and on April 14th, 1663, things were even worse, for it was reported that they were sold at a reduction of 15 per cent. In December of the latter year Pepys could hardly believe the evidence of his ears when he learned the “extraordinary good news,” that the credit of the office was “as good as any merchant’s upon Change;” but these bright days did not last long. Parliament being very dissatisfied with the way in which the money was spent by the officers of the navy, appointed, a few years afterwards, a commission to look into the accounts. This gave Pepys much trouble, which he did not relish, and we find him busy in making things as pleasant as possible during the latter part of 1666. He was in “mighty fear and trouble” when called before the committee, the members of which appeared to be “in a very ill humour.” Three years after this he drew up a letter to the Commissioners of Accounts on the state of the office, a transcript of which, addressed to “H. R. H. the Lord High Admiral,” and dated January 8th, 1669–70, is now in the library of the British Museum.[213]

One of the most unsatisfactory divisions of the naval accounts related to the pursers. Pepys was early interested in the Victualling Department, out of which he afterwards made much money; and on September 12th, 1662, we find him trying “to understand the method of making up Purser’s Accounts, which is very needful for me and very hard.” On November 22nd, 1665, he remarks that he was pleased to have it demonstrated “that a Purser without professed cheating is a professed loser twice as much as he gets.” Pepys received his appointment of Surveyor-General of the Victualling Office chiefly through the influence of Sir William Coventry, and on January 1st, 1665–6, he addressed a letter and “New Yeares Guift” on the subject of pursers to his distinguished friend. He relates in the “Diary” how he wrote the letter, and how Sir William praised his work to the Duke.[214]

The want of money led to other evils that brought the greatest discredit upon the Navy Office. The tickets that were given to the men in place of money, were received with the greatest disgust, and during the time of the Dutch war the scarcity of sailors was so great that a wholesale system of pressing was resorted to. We learn that on June 30th, 1666, Sir Thomas Bludworth, the Lord Mayor, impressed a large number of persons wholly unfit for sea, and when we are further told that some of them were “people of very good fashion,” it is not surprising that Pepys should call the Mayor “a silly man.”

So great was the disgust of the unpaid men, that during the war with Holland English sailors positively preferred to serve in the ships of the enemies of England rather than fight for their own country, and when the Dutch were in the Medway English voices were heard from Dutch ships.[215]

The seamen were not likely to learn much good from their superiors, for throughout the whole fleet swearing, drinking, and debauchery were rampant.[216]

A great part of the evils arose from the appointment of so-called “gentlemen captains,” men who were unacquainted with maritime affairs, and treated the sailor captains with contempt, calling them tarpaulins, a name which now only remains to us in the reduced form of tar. This evil was well known in the reign of Elizabeth, and was pointed out by Gibson, who wrote memoirs of the expeditions of the navy from 1585 to 1603,[217] and all readers are familiar with Macaulay’s remarks on the same subject. Captain Digby, a son of the Earl of Bristol, and one of these “ornamental officers,” after he had been in the fleet about a year expressed the wish that he might not again see a tarpaulin have the command of a ship.[218] These useless captains, who could make bows, but could not navigate a ship, raised the ire of old Nan Clarges, otherwise Duchess of Albemarle, who “cried out mightily against the having of gentlemen captains with feathers and ribbands, and wished the king would send her husband to sea with the old plain sea captains that he served with formerly, that would make their ships swim with blood, though they could not make legs as captains now-a-days can.”[219]

The common custom of employing indiscriminately land officers as admirals, and naval officers as generals, often led to disasters. There can be no doubt of the bravery of Monk and Rupert, but when on shipboard they made many blunders and endangered the safety of the fleet.

All this confusion caused dire disasters, which culminated in the presence of the hostile Dutch fleet in our rivers; a national disgrace which no Englishman can think of even now without a feeling of shame. While reading the “Diary,” we are overwhelmed with the instances of gross mismanagement in naval affairs. Many of the men whose carelessness helped to increase the amount of rampant blundering were, however, capable of deeds of pluck and bravery. In one of the engagements with the Dutch, Prince Rupert sent his pleasure-boat, the “Fanfan,” with two small guns on board, against the Dutch admiral, De Ruyter. With great daring, the sailors brought their little boat near, and fired at De Ruyter’s vessel for two hours, but at last a ball did them so much damage that the crew were forced to row briskly to save their lives.[220]

Another instance of bravery more deserving of honour is that recorded of Captain Douglas, of the “Royal Oak,” who had received orders to defend his ship at Chatham. This he did with the utmost resolution, but, having had no order to retire, he chose rather to be burnt in his ship than live to be reproached with having deserted his command. It is reported that Sir William Temple expressed the wish that Cowley had celebrated this noble deed before he died.[221]

Pepys tells us that on July 21st, 1668, he went to his “plate-makers,” and spent an hour in contriving some plates for his books of the King’s four yards, and that on the 27th of the same month the four plates came home. They cost him five pounds, and he was in consequence both troubled and pleased.

No account of the state of the navy in Charles II.’s time, however short, would be complete without some notice of the four dockyards (Chatham, Deptford, Portsmouth, and Woolwich), which necessarily occupy a very prominent place in the “Diary.” Chatham yard was founded by Queen Elizabeth, and it remained under the special charge of the Surveyor of the Navy until a Special Commissioner was appointed in 1630. This explains a passage in the “Diary” which has not hitherto been illustrated. When, in April, 1661, Sir William Batten, the Surveyor of the Navy, and Pepys were on a visit to Chatham, they went “to see Commissioner Pett’s house, he and his family being absent, and here I wondered how my Lady Batten walked up and down, with envious looks, to see how neat and rich everything is, saying that she would get it, for it belonged formerly to the Surveyor of the Navy.”[222] The first Commissioner was Phineas Pett, who died in 1647, and was succeeded by his son, Peter Pett, who figures so frequently in the “Diary.” Peter was continued in office at the Restoration, but he was suspended in 1667 in consequence of the success of the Dutch attack upon Chatham. He was sent to the Tower and threatened with impeachment, but, although the threat was not carried out, he was never restored to office. The appointment remained in abeyance for two years after, when, in March, 1669, Captain John Cox, the master attendant at Deptford, was made resident Commissioner at Chatham. In January, 1672, he was appointed flag captain to the Duke of York, in the “Prince,” without vacating his office at Chatham, was knighted in April, and killed at the battle of Solebay in May, all in the same year.

The Hill-house that Pepys visited for the first time on the 8th of April, 1661, is frequently mentioned on subsequent pages of the “Diary.”[223] The “old Edgeborrow,” whose ghost was reported to haunt the place, was Kenrick Edisbury, Surveyor of the Navy from 1632 to 1638. Pepys does not seem quite to have appreciated the story of the ghost which was told him as he went to bed after a merry supper, although he affirms that he was not so much afraid as for mirth’s sake he seemed.[224] In the “Memoirs of English Affairs, chiefly Naval, from the year 1660 to 1673, written by James, Duke of York,” there is a letter from James to the principal officers of the navy (dated May 10th, 1661), in which he recommends that the lease of the Hill-house should be bought by them, if it can be obtained at a reasonable rate, as the said house “is very convenient for the service of his Majesty’s Navy.”[225]

After the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins advised the establishment of a chest at Chatham for the relief of seamen wounded in their country’s service, and the sailors voluntarily agreed to have certain sums “defalked” out of their wages in order to form this fund. In July, 1662, Pepys was told of the abuse of the funds, and advised to look into the business.[226] At the end of the same year a commission was appointed to inspect the chest,[227] but the commissioners do not seem to have done much good, for in 1667 there was positively no money left to pay the poor sailors what was owed to them.[228] After a time the property became considerable, but unfortunately the abuses grew as well. In 1802 the chest was removed to Greenwich, and in 1817 the stock is said to have amounted to £300,000 consols.

Deptford dockyard was founded about the year 1513. Pepys made occasional visits to it, and on one occasion he and Coventry took the officers (of whose honesty he had not a very high opinion) by surprise. On June 16th, 1662, he mentions going to see “in what forwardness the work is for Sir W. Batten’s house and mine.” He found the house almost ready, but we hear no more of it in the subsequent pages of the “Diary.”

Portsmouth dockyard was established by Henry VIII., but it did not hold a foremost position until, in the reign of William III., Edmund Dummer contrived a simple and ingenious method of pumping water from dry docks below the level of low tide, which enabled Portsmouth for the first time to possess a dry dock capable of taking in a first-rate man-of-war. It was Dummer who also designed and constructed the first docks at Plymouth.[229]

Sir Edward Montague first chose Portsmouth as the place from which to draw his title, but he afterwards gave the preference to Sandwich.

When Pepys visited Portsmouth in May, 1661, he was very pleased with his reception by the officers of the dockyard, who treated him with much respect.

Although the date of the foundation of Woolwich dockyard is not recorded, it is known to have been of considerable importance in Henry VIII.’s reign. It figures very frequently in the “Diary.”[230]

Very soon after Pepys was settled in his office, he thought it advisable to give his attention to the question of the British dominion of the seas, and he made a special study of Selden’s “Mare Clausum.” He intended to write a treatise on the rights of the English flag, and present it to the Duke of York. His reason for doing this was that it promised to be a good way to make himself known.[231] The right of making foreign vessels strike their sails to the English flag had been insisted upon from early times. Selden’s work, in which the case was strongly urged, met therefore with great favour. Charles I. made an order in council that a copy should be kept in the council chest, another in the Court of Exchequer, and a third in the Court of Admiralty. The upholders of this right triumphed when, in the treaty of peace with the Dutch (February 9th, 1674), the States-General confessed that to be a right which before had been styled courtesy, and they agreed that not only separate ships, but whole fleets should strike sails to any fleet or ship carrying the king’s flag.[232] John Evelyn argued strongly in favour of England’s right to the dominion of the sea in his “Navigation and Commerce” (1674), but he privately confessed to Pepys that he did not consider there was any sufficient evidence of the right.[233]

We must now turn our attention to the Diarist’s colleagues at the Navy Office, and it is here very needful to caution the reader against putting implicit faith in all the adverse remarks that fill the “Diary.” It is a curious fact that, with the exception of Sir William Coventry, scarcely any of the officers come off with a good character. Pepys held Coventry in profound respect, and was never prouder than when he received a word of praise from him, and yet we do not obtain a very favourable idea of the secretary to the Duke of York from other writers, and in the pages of Clarendon we are presented with a very adverse character of him.

Those officers with whom Pepys came most in contact were Sir George Carteret, the Treasurer; Sir Robert Slingsby and Sir John Minnes, successive Comptrollers; Sir William Batten and Colonel Thomas Middleton, successive Surveyors; and Sir William Penn and Lord Viscount Brouncker, additional Commissioners.

Pepys did not hold Carteret in much esteem, and we read constant disparaging remarks respecting him, such as that on one occasion he wanted to know what the four letters S. P. Q. R. meant, “which ignorance is not to be borne in a Privy Counsellor,”[234] but after Sir George’s son had married a daughter of Lord Sandwich, and he had thus become a near connection of Pepys’s family, we read of “his pleasant humour,” and are told that he is “a most honest man.” Sir Robert Slingsby died in 1661, and therefore does not occupy a very prominent position in the “Diary,” but Pepys grieved for his loss.

Sir John Minnes was better known as a wit than as a sailor, and it was he who taught Pepys to appreciate Chaucer. He does not, however, come off very handsomely in the “Diary.” Captain Holmes called him “the veriest knave and rogue and coward in the world,”[235] and Sir William Coventry likened him to a lapwing, who was always in a flutter to keep others from the nest.[236] Pepys himself, after a few quarrels, hints pretty plainly that he was an old coxcomb, a mere jester or ballad-monger, and quite unfit for business.

We are told of Sir William Batten’s corruption and underhand dealing,[237] of his knavery,[238] and of his inconsequent action in objecting to lighthouses generally, and then proposing one for Harwich;[239] but Pepys’s two chief enemies were Sir William Penn and Lord Brouncker.

Sir William Penn and Pepys were much thrown together, and were alternately very friendly and very jealous of each other. When Pepys first associated with Penn, he found him sociable but cunning, and ever after the pages of the “Diary” are filled with vituperation respecting this successful admiral. Considering the eminent position of William Penn the son, as a leader among the Quakers, it is curious to note that before the Restoration, and when Monk was coming from the North, it was reported that Penn, the father, had turned Quaker.[240] In May, 1660, Charles II. wrote to Monk: “I have so good an opinion of General Penn, that if you had not recommended him to me I would have taken care of all his interests;”[241] and we cannot doubt that he possessed some eminent qualities of which we learn nothing in the “Diary.”

Lord Brouncker was a good mathematician in his own day, and his name has come down with credit to ours as the first President of the Royal Society, but his portrait as painted by Pepys is far from a pleasing one—let us hope that it was not a true likeness. He was not a rich man, for his mother was a gamester, and his father a land-lacking peer, and he was probably not over particular as to the means he took to obtain money. We may believe this, however, without agreeing with Pepys that he was “a rotten-hearted, false man.”[242] Aubrey says that the following lines were written on his parents:—