An instance of this art may be drawn from the King's ship now called the Anne Royal, whose estimate being first set down by the Master Shipwrights at 3576l., which sum would have built another (by the judgment of those that made the estimate) newly from the stocks of equal burthen, doth upon her finishing by Phineas Pett (a favourite of the chief officers) amount to full 7600l. upon that false ground which before hath been spoken of.

A little further on, in dealing with frauds connected with the receipt of stores, Pett is again made the principal example:

When timber and other materials come to be received into the stores, of the Clerk of the Check combining closely with the deliverers to increase the quantity of that which is delivered some time to a third part above true measure, which increase is shared between both, and lots are cast upon the robe of the Redeemer.

Sir Foulke Greville, espying plainly this collusion between parties to the wrong of our great Master, sought to prevent this play of fast and loose by adding Phineas Pett to the Clerk of the Check at Chatham as an assistance to take care that there might be no increase of quantities, but all things accounted for in their true proportion in weight and number as they were indeed, without conspiracy. But such was the falsehood of the party, as having found the thief, he ran with him, thrusting himself into [the] pack with the Clerk and the deliverer; and thus adding himself as an assistant indeed, not to plain dealers as Sir Foulke Greville meant, but to filchers and abusers, as Pett himself meant, which appears upon examination.

In a further charge relating to the issue of material for ships building or under repair, it is pointed out that the Surveyor had taken away the keys of the storehouses from the Clerk of the Check, their proper custodian, 'and put them into the hand of Pett his chief favourite, who could not only take just what he liked, but likewise hath power to expend upon the ships (or under that pretence) whatsoever he thinketh good without contradiction, and full scope withal to embezzle what he list.' He is also mentioned in connexion with the construction and decay of the 'pale' which should defend the storeyard from pilferers 'on the outside towards the Thames,' and with the employment of youths and boys 'that fill up numbers but work little.' Finally he is charged with 'wasteful and lavish expense' in repairing the ironwork of the Anne Royal at a cost of 800l., or more than double the amount necessary for the purpose. In the only charge to which Pett himself refers, namely, that of altering his lodgings, he is not mentioned by name, but it is clear that all the resident officials had added rooms to their houses at the expense and to the detriment of the storehouses which adjoined.

There seems little doubt that these charges were well founded, and that Pett was acting in collusion with his 'very good friends' Mansell and Trevor to defraud the State. It is, however, probable that the other officers were little better, and were only restrained by the lack of those opportunities the possession of which they envied Pett.

The Prince Royal.

It is clear from the remarks in the Report of the Commission of Inquiry already quoted and from Pett's narrative[112] that the original intention was to rebuild the Victory, which had been removed from Chatham to Woolwich in the autumn of 1606 for this purpose. The official records do not throw any light upon the circumstances in which this intention came to be abandoned, and indeed the Treasurer's official accounts for 1609 and 1610 preserve the fiction that the Victory was rebuilt.[113] From the story related by Phineas, it appears that the Victory had been given by James to Prince Henry, and that Pett was entrusted with the task of rebuilding her because he was one of the Prince's retainers. He then conceived the idea of constructing a ship larger than any that his predecessors had built, and made a model embodying his design, which so pleased the Lord High Admiral that the King was brought to see it, with the result that it was decided to build a new great ship on the lines suggested by Pett. This procedure of constructing a model to scale from the design, for the approval of the authorities, before starting to build the ship, is probably the first instance of the adoption of a course that later became customary in all cases where a new ship represented an advance in size, or method of construction, or embodied features not to be found in her predecessors. Her keel was not laid until the 20th October 1608, nearly a year after the model had been submitted to the King's inspection. In the meantime the Commission of Inquiry had been appointed, and the construction had not proceeded far before questions were raised as to the correctness of the design, the suitability of the material, and the competence of Pett as designer and builder.

On the 15th December, Baker was examined on the subject before the Commission. The questions put to him related to the estimated cost of the Prince Royal and the material used; the cost of the rebuilding of the Ark Royal; and the experience of Pett as a builder. Baker estimated the probable cost of the Prince at £7000, nearly twice what he had been paid for the Merhonour.[114] This estimate, although apparently in excess of one given by Pett, proved very far short of the mark, since the total cost finally came to nearly £20,000, no less than £1309 being spent on decoration and carving alone. As regards the material, Baker stated that the timber was very badly chosen. It appears that old and unsuitable trees were selected on account of the profit to be made by their larger 'tops,' which seem to have been one of the many perquisites of the officers. In preparing the timber there was, so Baker said,

so much waste as the charge will be well near half so much more as it needed to be to the King; besides the ship will be of many years less continuance serviceable than otherwise she would have been if the timber and plank had been well chosen, and framed in the wood.