| £ | s. | d. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Treasurer of the Navy | 220 | 13 | 4 | |
| Comptroller | 500 | 0 | 0 | |
| Surveyor | 490 | 0 | 0 | |
| Clerk of the Acts | 350 | 0 | 0 | |
| Three Commissioners at £500 and one at | 350 | 0 | 0 | |
| Messenger to the Admiralty | 20 | 0 | 0 |
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.