Pepys's Later Diaries E-Book

Samuel Pepys

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2006

Beschreibung

Pepys never resumed the personal Diary which he abandoned in 1669 fearing he was going blind. He was one of the greatest accidental historians, never intending to record for posterity, but for amusement. This book makes these diaries available to the general reader. These documents enhance the picture of Pepys as a politician and civil servant.

Leseprobe

Pepys’s

LATER DIARIES

Pepys’s

LATER DIARIES

Edited by C.S. Knighton

This book was first published in 2004 by Sutton Publishing Limited

This paperback edition first published in 2006

The History Press The Mill, Brimscombe Port Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QGwww.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© C.S. Knighton, 2004, 2013

The right of C.S. Knighton to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9532 3

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations and Symbols

Chronological Table

General Introduction

1 The Brooke House Journal 1670

2 The King’s Bench Journal 1679–80

3 Proceedings with James and Harris 1680

4 The Tangier Journal 1683

5 Diary of the Special Commission 1686

Diplomatic Notes

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College Cambridge, and to the Pepys Librarian, Dr R. Luckett, for permission to print three diaries from manuscripts in their custody. I am grateful to the Council of the Navy Records Society and its Hon. Secretary, Professor A.D. Lambert, for permitting me to reuse two texts published by the Society. Mr R.A.M. Dale and his sister Mrs Puttick kindly gave their blessing to my use of the NRS text of the Tangier Journal edited by their late great-uncle, Edwin Chappell. By kind permission of the literary executors of the late Professor William Matthews I have also been able to make use of his transcript of the journal. I must also thank Mrs Duchin, the Library Assistant, for the like with the Chappell papers. I am also grateful to the staff members of Cambridge University Library, the Bodleian Library, and the Codrington Library of All Souls College, Oxford, the Public Record Office and the National Maritime Museum for assisting my research. For particular points I am grateful to Mr P. Barber (British Library), Dr I.G. Brown (National Library of Scotland), Dr J.D. Davies, Mr A.V. Griffiths (British Museum), and Dr R. Mortimer (Westminster Abbey).

Cambridge, Michaelmas 2003

C.S.K.

Abbreviations and Symbols

(i) Bibliographical Abbreviations

Works listed here and cited in the notes were published in London or by issuing societies unless otherwise stated

Baxter, Treasury

S.B. Baxter, The Development of the Treasury, 1660–1702 (1957)

BL

British Library

Bodl.

Bodleian Library, Oxford

Bryant, SN

Sir A. Bryant, Samuel Pepys:The Saviour of the Navy (1938)

Bryant, YP

Sir A. Bryant, Samuel Pepys:The Years of Peril (1935)

Chandaman, Revenue

C.D. Chandaman, The English Public Revenue 1660–1688 (Oxford, 1975)

Collinge

Navy Board Officials, 1660–1832, comp. J.M. Collinge (Office-Holders in Modern Britain, VII, 1978)

CJ

Journals of the House of Commons

CSO

The Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy, 1660–1815, ed. D. Syrett and R.L. DiNardo (NRS, Occasional Publications, I, 1994)

CSPD

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series

CTB

Calendar of Treasury Books

Davies, Gentlemen and Tarpaulins

J.D. Davies, Gentlemen and Tarpaulins: The Officers and Men of the Restoration Navy (Oxford, 1991)

Diary

The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R.C. Latham and W. Matthews (1970–83)

EHR

English Historical Review

Evelyn, Diary

The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E.S. de Beer (Oxford, 1955)

Foss

E. Foss, Biographia Juridica: A Biographical Dictionary of the Judges of England … 1066–1870 (1870)

Foster, Alumni Oxon.

Alumni Oxonienses … 1500–1714, ed. J. Foster (Oxford, 1891–2)

Fox, Great Ships

F.L. Fox, Great Ships: The Battlefleet of King Charles II (Greenwich, 1980)

Further Corr.

Further Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, 1662–1679, ed. J.R. Tanner (1929)

Grey, Debates

Debates of the House of Commons, from the year 1667 to the year 1694, ed. A. Grey (1769)

Haley, Shaftesbury

K.H.D. Haley, The First Earl of Shaftesbury (Oxford, 1968)

Heath

The Letters of Samuel Pepys and his Family Circle, ed. H.T. Heath (Oxford, 1955)

Hist. Parl.

The House of Commons, 1660–1690, ed. B.D. Henning (The History of Parliament, 1983)

Hist. Parl. 1690–1715

The House of Commons, 1690–1715, ed.E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley and D.W. Hayton (The History of Parliament: Cambridge, 2002)

HMC

Historical Manuscripts Commission

HMC, Dartmouth

The Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth (HMC, 1887–96)

HMC, Lindsey

Supplementary Report on the Manuscripts of the late Montague Bertie, twelfth Earl of Lindsey, formerly preserved at Uffington House, Stamford, Lincolnshire, A.D. 1660– 1702, ed. C.G.O. Bridgeman and J.C. Walker (HMC, 1942)

HMC, Ormonde

Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, K.P., preserved at Kilkenny Castle, new series (1902–20)

Hornstein, Navy

S.R. Hornstein, The Restoration Navy and English Foreign Trade, 1674–1688 (Aldershot, 1991)

Houblon, Houblon Family

Lady A. Archer Houblon, The Houblon Family: Its Story and Times (1907)

Howarth

Letters and the Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R.G. Howarth (1932)

Kenyon, Popish Plot

J.P. Kenyon, The Popish Plot (1972)

LJ

Journals of the House of Lords

MCGOWAN

The Jacobean Commissions of Enquiry, 1608 and 1618, ed. A.P. MCGowan (NRS, CXVI, 1971)

MCMR

Magdalene College Magazine and Record

MM

The Mariner’s Mirror

Naval Minutes

Samuel Pepys’s Naval Minutes, ed. J.R. Tanner (NRS, LX, 1926)

NRS

Navy Records Society

NWB

Samuel Pepys and the Second Dutch War: Pepys’s Navy White Book and Brooke House Papers, ed. R.C. Latham (NRS, CXXXI, 1995)

ODNB

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Ollard, Pepys

R.L. Ollard, Pepys: A Biography (1974)

Pepys, Memoires

Samuel Pepys, Memoires relating to the State of the Royal Navy of England for ten years detemin’d December 1688 (1690), repr. ed. J.R. Tanner as Pepys’ Memoires of The Royal Navy, 1679–1688 (Oxford, 1906)

PL

Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge

PLB

Pepys Library Buffet [secondary material; not part of Pepys’s bequest]

Priv. Corr.

Private Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Samuel Pepys, 1679–1703, ed. J.R. Tanner (1926)

Routh, Tangier

E.M.G. Routh, Tangier: England’s Lost Atlantic Outpost, 1661–1684 (1912)

Sainty

Admiralty Officials, 1660–1870, comp. J.C. Sainty (Office-Holders in Modern Britain, IV, 1975)

Sainty, Treasury

Treasury Officials 1660–1870, comp. J.C. Sainty (Office-Holders in Modern Britain, I, 1972)

Sainty and Bucholz

Officials of the Royal Household 1660–1837, comp. J.C. Sainty and R.O. Bucholz (Office-Holders in Modern Britain, XI–XII, 1997–8)

STC

A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475–1640, comp. A.W. Pollard and G.R. Redgrave, 2nd edn by W.A. Jackson, F.S. Ferguson and K.F. Pantzer (1976–91)

PRO

Public Record Office

Tanner, Naval MSS

A Descriptive Catalogue of the Naval Manuscripts in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge (NRS, XXVI–VII, XXXVI, LV, 1903–23)

Tomalin, Pepys

C. Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (2002)

TP

The Tangier Papers of Samuel Pepys, ed.E. Chappell (NRS, LXXIII, 1935)

WAM

Westminster Abbey Muniments

Wing

Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, 1641–1700, comp. D. Wing, 2nd edn by J.J. Morrison, C.W. Nelson and M. Seccombe (New York, 1972–98)

See also head-note to the diplomatic notes

(ii) General Abbreviations

AG

Attorney-General

CJCP

Chief Justice of Common Pleas

JCP

Puisne Justice of Common Pleas

JKB

Puisne Justice of King’s Bench

KC

King’s Counsel

Kt

Knight

LCJ

Lord Chief Justice (of King’s Bench)

PC

Privy Councillor

SG

Solicitor-General

(iii) Pepys’s Own Abbreviations as Reproduced in this Edition

Persons denoted by intitals (generally expanded in the first instance; the prefixes Mr and Sir are not always used).

This list does not include occasional local abbreviations.

Mr A.G.

Attorney-General

Sir William Jones to October 1679, then Sir Creswell Levinz

Sir R.B.

Rear Adm. Sir Richard Beach

Navy Commissioner, Portsmouth 1679–92

Sir J.B.

Rear Adm. Sir John Berry

Navy Commissioner 1686–90

Sir W.B.

Sir William Booth

Captain of the Grafton in 1683

Lord B./Br.

Viscount Brouncker

Navy Commissioner 1664–80, Admiralty Commissioner 1681–4

Lord Do.

George Legge, 1st Baron Dartmouth

Admiral commanding Tangier squadron 1683–4

Sir A.D.

Sir Anthony Deane

shipwright; Navy Commissioner 1675–80, 1686–9

Sir J.G.

Sir John Godwin

Navy Commissioner 1679–86, Commissioner 1686–8

Sir R.H.

Sir Richard Haddock

Comptroller of the Navy 1682–6, 1688–1715, Commissioner 1686–8

Hd./Harbd.

William Harbord

MP; Chairman of Naval Enquiry Committee 1679

A.H.

Alexander Harris

Head messenger, Admiralty 1676–82

J.H.

John Harris

Porter, Admiralty 1676–8; Alexander’s brother

W.H./Mr H.

William Hewer

Clerk to Pepys at Navy Board and Admiralty 1660–79; Navy Commissioner 1686–9;Treasurer of Tangier 1679–84; with whom Pepys latterly lived

S.H.

Sarah Houblon

wife of James Houblon, a close friend of Pepys

J.J.

John James

formerly Pepys’s butler

Dr K.

Thomas Ken

senior Chaplain to the fleet at Tangier 1683–4; later

Bishop of Bath & Wells

K.

Col. Percy Kirke

Governor of Tangier

Dr L.

Adam Littleton

Canon of Westminster 1674–94

Sir T.L.

Sir Thomas Lee

Admiralty Commissioner 1679–81, 1689–91

Sir J.N.

Rear Adm. Sir John Narbrough

Navy Commissioner 1680–88

S.P./Mr P.

Samuel Pepys

Clerk of the Acts 1660–73; Admiralty Secretary 1673–9, 1684–9

Sir P.P.

Sir Phineas Pett

shipwright; Navy Commissioner 1680–88

B.St M./Mr St M.

Balthasar St Michel (‘Balty’)

Navy Commissioner 1686–8; Pepys’s brother-in-law

Mr Sh.

Henry Sheres

military engineer; Surveyor-General of the Ordnance 1685–9

Mr S.

James Southerne

Clerk of the Acts 1677–86, 1688–90; Navy Commissioner 1686–8; Admiralty Secretary 1690–4

Sir J.T.

Sir John Tippets

shipwright; Surveyor of the Navy 1672–86, 1688– 92; Commissioner 1686–8

Dr Tr.

William Trumbull (‘the Doctor’)

civil lawyer; later Secretary of State

Sir W.W.

Sir William Warren

timber merchant

D./D.Y.

James, Duke of York

Lord High Admiral c. 1649–73; King James II & VII 1685–8

also

N.O./N.Bd

Navy Office/Board

also Navy Commissioners, Navy Officers

responsible for shipbuilding, supplies and manning

T.

Tangier

(iv) Typographical Devices

|

indicates section of text omitted in this edition

*

indicates a comment in the diplomatic notes (pp. 203–5)

Chronological Table

General Introduction

The great Diary for which Pepys is universally known was closed on 31 May 1669. For some while his eyesight had been weakening, and he feared that complete blindness was imminent. He suspected that the Diary, written in shorthand and usually by candlelight, had been much to blame, and with great reluctance he decided not to continue it. Although his eyes recovered after a few months’ rest, and in time he resumed his habitual shorthand, he never again kept a comparable diary. It would be as churlish to complain that he gave us no more than those nine and a half years as to berate eminent composers who did not deliver a tenth symphony. Even so, we must regret that Pepys did not leave us a record, of whatever artistic merit, of those great events of the 1670s and 1680s in which he was an active participant: the Third Dutch War, the Exclusion Crisis and the development of party politics, the Revolution of 1688. This is indeed one of the most important and interesting books never written.1

There are nevertheless a few sketches for this unachieved masterpiece. Pepys did revert to the diary format on several later occasions, though always restricted to some particular business of special importance. This volume includes the five most cohesive of these texts, presented as far as possible in a uniform style. Two have been printed before. The Tangier Journal of 1683 is Pepys’s record of the winding-up of Britain’s first African colony. Of these later pieces it is the nearest to a general diary, and has been issued in popular editions. These versions were revealed as defective with the publication of a scholarly version by the Navy Records Society; the present collection includes a slightly trimmed version of the Society’s text with a new commentary. The NRS has more recently published Pepys’s Brooke House Journal of 1670, chronicling the proceedings of a royal Commission into alleged mismanagement by the Navy Board during the Second Dutch War. Here a much more substantial reduction is made, because the full text contains a daunting mass of technical data which overflows from the diurnal framework. Three previously unpublished diaries are printed from MSS in the library which Pepys bequeathed to his old Cambridge college, Magdalene. Two concern his troubles during the Popish Plot in 1679–80: a formal journal of his appearances before the court of King’s Bench, where he stood accused of but was never tried for high treason; and a more particular journal of his attempts to obtain retractions from those who had deposed evidence against him. Finally there is a diary recording the setting up in 1686 of a special commission to reform the Navy, the culminating achievement of Pepys’s professional life. These five diaries here stand in chronological order; and while they do not produce a sequence from 1670 to 1686, they allow us to follow Pepys day by day at key moments in those years.

The Tangier Journal is derived from Pepys’s shorthand original. The other diaries exist only in copies made by Pepys’s clerks, and each was written up as a piece after the events it described. Pepys’s original daily notes were simply discarded when these fair copies were made. We know that Pepys built up his personal Diary in the same way.2 None of these pieces has a convenient authentic name; in each case Pepys’s own rather cumbersome title will be seen set before the text. The term ‘Second Diary’ has been applied both to the Tangier Journal (in R.G. Howarth’s edition of 1932) and to the Brooke House Journal (as a chapter title in Sir Arthur Bryant’s Years of Peril). For the 1683 diary ‘Tangier Journal’ is now well established. That of 1670 seems to have been christened the ‘Brooke House Journal’ by Richard Ollard, and the ‘King’s Bench Journal’ suggests itself by comparison. For the third item I can offer nothing better than ‘Proceedings with James and Harris’. The 1686 journal begins a volume which is stamped ‘Diary Naval’ on the spine; but this seems to claim too much, and I have invented ‘Diary of the Special Commission’ – though even that implies more than it delivers.

Pepys also kept a diary of sorts during the Commons debates of 1677, when he was promoting a programme for rebuilding the battlefleet. Although this has been mentioned together with the texts here printed, it is too fragmentary a document to be presented alongside them for general reading. There are also many outstanding problems in interpreting the MS. It is hoped, however, that a version will eventually be issued in an appropriate place.3 The canon of ‘Pepys diaries’ could be extended to include several short chronological summaries of various pieces of business.4 Such documents would not usually be included by diary bibliographers.5

It has always been recognised, but must nevertheless be repeated, that even the longer texts printed here are B-features. None approaches the stature of the Diary of 1660–9. The Tangier Journal, the best of the rest, has been called ‘a worthy appendage to the great diary … written with all the old vitality’ and abounding in ‘incisive character sketches’.6 The most recent and most severe verdict is that ‘it could be almost anyone’s’; the enthusiasm, the curiosity, even the literary invention which distinguished the first Diary are gone.7 All these pieces nevertheless have the interest which attaches to minor works by a great artist, and they are unquestionably historical documents of considerable importance. Above all, many of Pepys’s admirers will find here things to cherish, as we all value the company of old friends even when they have lost the sparkle which once delighted us.

Pepys’s biographers have made use of some or all of these later diaries, but here Pepys tells his own stories, (more or less) uninterrupted, and it seemed desirable to present his narration in a consistent fashion. The governing factor was that the two texts taken from the Navy Records Society’s editions appear there in modern spelling, in keeping with the Society’s usual practice. For the Brooke House Journal it would have been absurd to turn the selections printed here back into their original spelling, when the full edition has modernised the whole. Similar considerations apply to the Tangier Journal, and the more so because the MS is in shorthand. Although some of Pepys’s earlier editors attempted to render his shorthand into what they considered seventeenth-century orthography, there is no certain authority for the practice, and the definitive modern edition of the Diary makes modern British spelling its standard.8 ‘Tangier’ apart, the spelling is that of the copyist, not of Pepys himself. From all this it follows that the three texts here newly published should also be presented in modern spelling. In all cases exceptions are allowed for words (e.g. ‘hath’) which have no precise modern equivalent. The names of persons and places are given throughout in their established modern forms (the MS variants being supplied in the index); unidentified persons and places appear in their MS forms. These conventions are commonly used in modern-spelling editions. A special feature here is the retention of the initials Pepys uses for familiar individuals and in a few other cases. In preparing the NRS volume where the Brooke House Journal appears, Robert Latham and I decided to retain most of these usages, by way of perpetuating something of the character of the original. I adopted the same practice in the texts here newly transcribed; and for consistency I have reintroduced it in the Tangier Journal, in place of the fully extended names given by the NRS editor. A few other inoffensive quirks and archaisms have also been left in place.

The dating formulae at the start of each entry generally follow Pepys’s usage. Contemporary forms of abbreviation (as ‘22th’ for ‘two-and-twentieth’) have been retained. The year of grace was calculated from 25 March, and the modern calendar year from 1 January, where variant is supplied editorially. All dating in the editorial matter follows modern usage in this respect; otherwise the old style (Julian calendar) is used throughout.

The newly published material is given in its entirety, though in all cases the ‘diary’ is detached from surrounding material. For the previously printed texts the symbol | is used to indicate an omission (less intrusive, it is hoped, than … , while clearly indicating the editorial knife). The nature of the editing is more particularly discussed in the introductions to the Brooke House and Tangier Journals. Wherever possible the cuts have been made in a way which allows Pepys’s own words to be read consecutively; but occasionally it has been necessary to insert [editorial words thus] for fluency. The same device is occasionally used to expand abbreviations, or to explain obscure words or constructions. Rather longer editorial links have been found necessary in the Brooke House Journal. Diplomatic notes (recording MS corrections or problematic readings) are flagged in each case by *; the notes themselves appear separately from the general footnotes, on pp. 229–31. These apply chiefly to the Tangier Journal, as again more fully discussed in its separate introduction.

Although the spelling has been modernised, the language has not, and remains that of the seventeenth century. This will be found at greatest remove from modern usage in the Brooke House Journal, where Pepys is at his most formal, and intentionally so. The grinding construction of his sentences was an essential part of his defensive armoury, and he makes no concessions to the faint-hearted. Here and elsewhere a few technical terms are explained in the annotation. The modern reader must chiefly beware of simple words which have changed in meaning over the past 300 years. Generally it is a matter of emphasis or insinuation which we now detect where Pepys knew and intended none. ‘Extraordinary’, for example, means no more than its modern contraction ‘extra’; an ‘extraordinary expense’ was one not occurring regularly, without any suggestion of excess. ‘Foul’ (of a written text) means a rough version but not necessarily a messy one. When Pepys says a paper is read ‘deliberately’ he means ‘carefully, deliberatively’, not ‘on purpose’. To ‘pretend’ means merely to claim, with no implication of falsity. Most of those who read these pages will already know Pepys’s style; any who now make his acquaintance for the first time will soon have an ear for the rhythms of his language. Guidance is therefore given only in the most difficult passages.

Since all these diaries were kept at moments of great personal significance, their circumstances are by definition prominent in all versions of Pepys’s life. It is therefore unnecessary to preface them with lengthy recapitulation of what may be read elsewhere. The most fully documented account remains that of Sir Arthur Bryant, who quotes extensively from these texts.9 There have since been several biographies, most recently that by Mrs Tomalin from which I have already quoted.10 The full versions of the Brooke House and Tangier Journals are lucidly prefaced by their respective editors. In introducing and annotating these five texts I have therefore not given authority for well-established elements in Pepys’s curriculum vitae.

1. Paraphrasing R.C. Latham’s concluding remarks in The Illustrated Pepys (1978), p. 231, and The Shorter Pepys (1985), p. 1024.

2. W. Matthews in Diary, I, pp. c–cvi.

3. Bodl. MS Rawlinson C. 859a (as now detached from the larger MS containing the Tangier Journal and related papers). The ‘Parliament Notes’ were transcribed by William Matthews along with the Tangier material, all from shorthand, and a copy of his typescript was deposited in the Pepys Library reference collection. The full corpus of Pepys’s literary remains is laid out in Diary, X, pp. 89–91.

4. E.g. ‘A journal of my proceedings in the business of the prizes’, 17 September–13 November 1665, printed as an appendix to TP (pp. 335–7). It concerns Pepys’s share of cargoes unlawfully seized during the Second Dutch War.

5. Cf. W. Matthews, British Diaries: An Annotated Bibliography of British Diaries written between 1442 and 1942 (Berkeley, CA, 1950); Unpublished London Diaries, comp. H. Creaton (London Record Soc., XXXVII (2003), pp. 2–3.

6. C. Lloyd in Diary, X, p. 412.

7. C. Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (2002), p. 334.

8. Cf. W. Matthews in Diary, I, pp. lvii–lviii.

9. A. Bryant, Samuel Pepys: The Years of Peril (1935) [for Brooke House and Popish Plot]; Samuel Pepys: The Saviour of the Navy (1938) [for Tangier and the Special Commission]. The first volume of the trilogy [The Man in the Making (1933)] covers the period of the great Diary.

10. R.L. Ollard, Pepys: A Biography (1974). V. Brome, The Other Pepys (1992). S. Coote, Samuel Pepys: A Life (2000). In passing I should say that Mr Coote’s book had not reached me when I wrote Pepys and the Navy (Stroud, 2003), and I now find I used a chapter title which he had already put to the same purpose. I apologise for this accidental collision.

ONE

The Brooke House Journal 3 January–21 February 1670

The first of the later diaries is a record of proceedings before the Privy Council in the first weeks of 1670, when Pepys defended the management of the Navy during the Second Dutch War. Coming as it does just six months after the closure of the great Diary, it involves issues and personalities familiar to those who have followed Pepys through the 1660s. Indeed it may be said to close one of its principal storylines. The contrast with the personal Diary is therefore all the more striking and possibly disconcerting. It is better to see it as a polished version of one of the many ancillary records which Pepys was already keeping in the Diary years, and from which the Diary itself was in part compiled. While most of these were discarded when they ceased to be of current use, ‘Brooke House’ was carefully revised, and left en clair as a permanent record.

The Second Dutch War (1665–7) was the first great challenge of Pepys’s professional career. When he was brought into the Navy Board as Clerk of the Acts (or secretary) in 1660 he had some experience of public administration but none at all of the workings of the Navy. He was greatly outranked by his colleagues at the Board: Sir George Carteret, the Treasurer; Sir William Batten, the Surveyor; Sir John Mennes, the Comptroller, and Sir William Penn were all past or current flag officers with a wealth of collective expertise. But they were also quite old, and unenthusiastic for the desk work at which Pepys excelled. So by the time the war came, Pepys had been able to make his mark in the naval administration to a much larger degree than his position as Clerk strictly entailed. Equally, of course, his position became the more exposed when things went badly, which after a promising start the war certainly did. The Dutch were beaten at Lowestoft in 1665, but not swept from the sea. They returned to fight two massive engagements in 1666, without a clear victor emerging. In 1667, when the English had decided to settle for peace and had laid up the great ships, the Dutch executed the daring raid on the Medway anchorage which remains the most humiliating episode in the history of the Royal Navy.

Parliament had voted unprecedented sums of money to fight the war, and soon began to complain loudly of the poor return on its investment. The earlier Dutch war, under Cromwell’s protectorate, appeared to be much more satisfactory in military and economic terms. Charles II’s regime had clearly failed to achieve the same effect. There were some criticisms of the operational command, and of the King himself, but for the most part Parliament suspected the naval administration was inefficient and corrupt, and had somehow withheld the ships, men and supplies necessary for victory. All this was the responsibility of the Navy Board and its subdepartment the Navy Treasury; and as a result the file of accusations would land squarely in Pepys’s in-tray.

Pepys first had to face the House of Commons Committee on Miscarriages, which was set up in October 1667. This was something of a blunt instrument, with a wide but imprecise remit. Two of its most prominent concerns did not directly affect Pepys or his Navy Board colleagues: the allegation that the English fleet had failed to pursue the Dutch after Lowestoft, and the criticism of the division of the fleet in the following year. The Medway raid was a different matter, because it raised questions about hardware which the Navy Board supplied – notably the defensive iron chain which had presented so inconsiderable an obstacle to the Dutch. However, it proved possible to focus blame on the resident Navy Commissioner at Chatham, Peter Pett, and the Ordnance Office. Pepys’s principal business before the Miscarriages Committee was on the subject of seamen’s tickets. These were vouchers issued by the Navy Treasury when ships were discharged and pay was due. The tickets could only be cashed at the Treasury Office in London, and many seamen sold them below value to brokers rather than journey to the office. It fell to Pepys to explain time after time why a credit system was necessary: often there simply was no cash in hand; at other times it might be dangerous to carry large sums to the dockside. There were also accounting complexities, as when seamen transferred from one ship to another without touching land. Pepys’s most extensive dissertation on the subject was delivered in a three-hour speech at the bar of the Commons on 5 March 1668.1 This also marked Pepys’s emergence as the public spokesman for the Navy Board, and stimulated his ambitions to enter the Commons chamber in his own right. These aspirations received a further boost after the second stage of the post-war enquiry.

The Brooke House Commission has a separate but parallel history to that of the Miscarriages Committee. In September 1666 the Commons, already worried by the disappearing war chest, appointed a committee to examine the accounts of the Navy, Army and Ordnance. The MPs attempted to give teeth to their enquiry by associating with the Lords, and so acquiring the Upper House’s ability to examine witnesses on oath. When this failed they tried another procedural wheeze, the tack, writing proposals for their own judicial enquiry into an existing money bill. The King managed to defuse the ensuing argument for a while with a tactic of his own, proroguing the session. His position was much less confident after the Medway raid, and in October he agreed to an enquiry with the powers of scrutiny for which the Commons had been asking. This body was established by statute, and is therefore designated a commission rather than a committee. Its nine members were, however, chosen by an ad hoc Commons committee, and by the House’s own resolve no sitting members were nominated. The Commissioners were themselves paid, and were provided with a staff of three and premises at Brooke House in Holborn. There they set to work to discover how the parliamentary vote for the war had been spent, and by their statutory authority they sent for all relevant accounts and interrogated the accountants. Pepys was an early visitor at their office, and started to keep his own separate records of dealings with them.2 Their very first demand he thought ‘contains more then we shall ever be able to answer while we live’.3

So the Commissioners proceeded on their laborious way. As they did, Pepys shadowed them, anticipating their moves and conducting his own evaluation of the naval administration at the Duke of York’s request. In October 1669 the Commission finally submitted its report to the King and Parliament, making ten ‘Observations’ against the accounts of the Navy Treasurer, Carteret, and a further eighteen ‘Observations’ on administrative procedures of the whole Navy Board. The Commissioners had sent advance copies of their report to the Board at the end of September, but Pepys did not see it until he returned to the Navy Office on 20 October. He had been on leave since August, recovering from the eyestrain and general fatigue which made him abandon the Diary at the end of May. He and his wife had been visiting France and the Netherlands; and although the trip restored Pepys’s health, his wife developed a fever and died soon after their return. Despite or perhaps because of this blow, and the additional disappointment of failing in his first attempt to enter Parliament, Pepys immersed himself in responding to the Brooke House report. Within a week he had produced a detailed rebuttal of the eighteen ‘Observations’, covering fifty pages as now printed. He followed this up immediately after Christmas with a briefer defence of his own conduct, and then sent the King and the Duke of York copies of the longer reply.

Meanwhile the venue for public debate of the Commission report had been crucially shifted. Initially the Lords and Commons each appointed committees, which began by considering the charges against Carteret. Pepys was twice summoned to the Lords, but this was not a very intimidating tribunal; Carteret himself, though manifestly not in control of his books, emerged uncensured. The Commons were less complacent, and voted for the Treasurer’s dismissal. At this point the King again prorogued Parliament, and during the recess found a much safer course, summoning the Commissioners to continue their examination of the Navy Officers at special sessions of the Privy Council, chaired by himself. It is these meetings, in January and February 1670, which the Brooke House Journal reports.

Pepys begins with a brief summary of events since his return from France in October 1669, and of his appearances before the Lords’ committee. The daily record opens on 3 January with a visit to the Treasury; proceedings in the Council Chamber at Whitehall get under way two days later. At first the matter under discussion is still the accounting of Sir George Carteret, held over from the Commons committee which the new forum had superseded. Still nobody could explain where Parliament’s £5 million had gone, and the suspicion lurked that Carteret had siphoned off half a million to support the King’s private pleasures. This was not Pepys’s battle, but he was ready with an exercise in creative accounting. He argued that ‘war expenses’ could be backdated beyond the day declared by statute to mark the outbreak of hostilities; and when challenged he claimed as much right to interpret an Act of Parliament as anyone else. This delighted the King, who invited Pepys to publish a refutation of the whole ‘other uses’ allegation. Pepys never took up the suggestion, but he is keen to demonstrate how from this moment the King warmed to him, and how together they ran the show.