Commission of Inquiry.
The corruption in the administration of the Navy, which had begun to appear in the last years of Elizabeth's reign, had by 1608 reached such a height that James was at length forced to take some steps in regard to it. The knowledge that Spain was actively engaged in setting her navy in order no doubt quickened the King into action and provided a motive powerful enough to sweep aside for the time the obstruction of the senile Nottingham and his jackal Mansell. At first it had been intended that Nottingham should head the Commission, and letters patent[108] were passed on 1st April 1608, in which his name appears first, Northampton coming second, but for some reason this was altered, and on the 30th April a commission under the great seal was issued to Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, then Lord Privy Seal and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, the Lord High Admiral, and thirteen others,[109] of whom Sir Robert Cotton, the famous antiquary, was the most active. Northampton, who was Nottingham's cousin, seems to have been the leader of the reform party, and although he is persistently vilified by Pett, there is little doubt that he was actuated by a more or less sincere desire (sharpened, possibly, by mutual antagonism between the offices of Lord Warden and Lord High Admiral) to reform the many existing abuses. What all these abuses were would take too long in telling, but they were sufficient to justify, and more than justify, the vigorous language of the patent, which speaks of the
'very great and intolerable abuses, deceits, frauds, corruptions, negligences, misdemeanours and offences' that 'have been and daily are perpetrated, committed, and done against the continual admonitions and direction of you our High Admiral by other the officers of and concerning our Navy Royal, and by the Clerks of the Prick and Check, and divers other inferior officers, ministers, soldiers, mariners, and others serving, working, or labouring in and about our said Navy.'
The patent then proceeds to give instructions for the examination of all officials who have been connected with the Navy since 1598 and the investigation of their accounts,
minding that the said intolerable abuses, frauds, misdemeanours, and offences shall forthwith be enquired of, the offenders therein condignly punished and also to provide a speedy reform of the same for the time to come.
Possibly, at the time, James really intended to reform the administration. Nottingham kept out of the way, and his subordinates had an unpleasant time while they were examined upon their misdeeds; but in the end, James' fear of Spain having passed away, he, with his usual weakness, let the offenders off with a lecture.
The Commission commenced to sit in May 1608 and sat for a little over a year, ending with the proceedings before the King recorded on pp. [68-69] below. During this period 161 witnesses were examined, and their signed depositions taken. These are preserved among the manuscripts of Sir Robert Cotton,[110] who acted as the secretary. They were analysed by Cotton, who drew up a lengthy report[111] in which various abuses are set forth and proposals made for their remedy; the latter, as might be expected, were duly ignored by the King. Among the offenders cited by name, Pett appears as one of the chief, and although the present occasion is not convenient for a general examination of the report and evidence, some mention must be made of the matters in which Pett is directly charged with wrong-doing.
The first point made against him is that while he was keeper of the timber store at Chatham he had failed to reject bad timber and plank brought in by one of the purveyors. His answer to this was 'that Sir Henry Palmer had been so quick with him for some of these exceptions as he would complain no more though the purveyors brought in faggot sticks.' He is next charged with certain malpractices in connexion with the Resistance, and other charges on this account are brought against him further on; these have already been referred to. In a general charge against the Master Shipwrights that, for reasons of private gain, ships were repaired 'when they were not worth the labour nor the charges bestowed on them,' the case of the Victory is cited as an example:
Thus did the Victory for transportation, docking and breaking up stand the king in four or five hundred pounds, and yet no one part of her at this day serviceable to any use about the building of a new as was pretended for a colour. To conclude, though we set her at a rate of 200l., yet it had been better absolutely for the King to have given her away to the poor than to have been put to the charge of bringing her from Chatham to Woolwich, no other use having been made of her than to furnish Phineas Pett (that was the only author of her preservation) with fuel for the diet of those Carpenters which he victualled.
In complaining that estimates for repair were made blindfold, with the result that money was spent upon old ships more than sufficient to have built new ones, the illustration is again drawn from Pett's proceedings: