On the 19th the fleet came home, “to our great grief, with not above five weeks dry and six weeks wet provisions, however, must go out again, and the duke hath ordered the Soveraigne, and all other ships ready, to go out to the fleet and strengthen them. This news troubles us all, but cannot be helped.”
On the 9th of September, 1665, he meets Sir William Doyly and Evelyn at supper: “And I with them full of discourse of the neglect of our masters, the great officers of state, about all business, and especially that of money, having now some thousands prisoners kept to no purpose, at a great charge, and no money provided almost for the doing of it.”
“Captain Cocke reports as a certain truth that all the Dutch fleet, men-of-war and merchant East India ships, are got every one in from Bergen, the 3rd of this month, Sunday last, which will make us all ridiculous.”
On the 14th, however, he says: “A letter from my Lord Sandwich at Solebay, of the fleet’s meeting with about eighteen more of the Dutch fleet, and his taking of most of them; and the messenger says, that they had taken three after the letter was wrote and sealed, which being twenty-one, and the fourteen took the other day, is forty-five sail, some of which are good and others rich ships.”
On the 18th he goes to Gravesend in the bezan yacht, and “by break of day we come to within sight of the fleet, which was a very fine thing to behold, being above 100 ships, great and small, with the flag-ships of each squadron distinguished by their several flags on their main, fore, or mizen-masts. Among others, the Soveraigne, Charles, and Prince, in the last of which my Lord Sandwich was. And so we come on board, and we find my Lord Sandwich newly up in his night-gown very well.”
He attends a council of war on board, “When comes Sir W. Penn, Sir Christopher Mingo, Sir Edward Spragg, Sir Jos. Jordan, Sir Thomas Teddiman, and Sir Roger Omittance.” Sir Christopher Mings was one of the bravest admirals of the day. He was the son of a shoemaker, and had worked his way up in the sea-service. He was killed the following year, June, 1666, in action with the Dutch. Pepys describes him as “a very witty, well-spoken fellow, and mighty free to tell his parentage, being a shoemaker’s son.”
On the 25th of January, 1666, he writes: “It is now certain that the King of France hath publickly declared war against us, and God knows how little fit we are for it.”
As an example of the way affairs were managed, he tells us that, viewing the yard at Chatham, he observed, “among other things, a team of four horses coming close by us, drawing a piece of timber that I am confident one man could easily have carried upon his back. I made the horses be taken away, and a man or two to take the timber away with their hands.”
Still more abominable was the way in which the wages of the unfortunate seamen were kept back. On the 7th of October, 1665, he writes: “Did business, though not much, at the office, because of the horrible crowd and lamentable moan of the poor seamen that lie starving in the streets for lack of money, which do trouble and perplex me to the heart; and more at noon, when we were to go through them, for then above a whole hundred of them followed us, some cursing, some swearing, and some praying to us.” He continues: “Want of money in the navy puts everything out of order; men grown mutinous, and nobody here to mind the business of the navy but myself.”
On the 19th of May, 1666: “Mr Deane and I did discourse about his ship Rupert, built by him, which succeeds so well as he hath got great honour by it, and I some by recommending him—the king, duke, and everybody saying it is the best ship that ever was built. And, then, he fell to explain to me his manner of casting the draught of water which a ship will draw beforehand, which is a secret the king and all admire in him; and he is the first that hath come to any certainty beforehand of foretelling the draught of water of a ship before she be launched.”