Part 3

It is evident that the administration of the navy after the Restoration was in the hands of able and experienced men, and that they were acting under instructions which were good enough to survive without material alteration for another century and a half. Yet there is abundant evidence in the Pepysian manuscripts and elsewhere to shew that naval administration during the period 1660-1673 was in the main a disastrous failure. The reason why the collapse was so complete was the pressure of the Second Dutch War upon the resources of the naval administration, but the essential causes lay deeper than external events. First and foremost undoubtedly stands the problem of finance. The want of money was the root of all evil in the Stuart navy. I propose to deal fully with this problem in my next lecture, and will only ask you to note its existence now. But there was more than this. On 15 August, 1666, Pepys made a remarkable entry in the _Diary_ which I think gives the key to the situation: 'Thence walked over the Park with Sir W. Coventry, in our way talking of the unhappy state of our Office; and I took an opportunity to let him know, that though the backwardnesses of all our matters of the Office may be well imputed to the known want of money, yet perhaps there might be personal and particular failings.' He then notes Coventry's reply, which indicates the way in which personal failings were themselves affected by want of money. 'Nor, indeed, says he, is there room now-a-days to find fault with any particular man, while we are in this condition for money.' The whole service was breathing the miasmas exhaled by a corrupt Court. Slackness was fashionable because the King was slack, and the higher naval administration had to contend with idleness and dishonesty in the lower ranks of the service due to a relaxation of the standards of public and private duty. In this conflict it was at a serious disadvantage, for it was impossible effectively to control subordinates whom there was no money to pay. The members of the Navy Board were capable and experienced, and their intentions were excellent, but the atmosphere was poisonous and the situation beyond control. 'Personal and particular failings' in combination with financial disorder ruined the Navy Office, as they would have ruined any public department in any country and at any time.

It would be idle to pretend that the Restoration officials conformed to modern standards of official purity; although they were very much better than the corrupt administrators of the reign of James I. Pepys is convicted on his own confession of a good deal that would be unthinkable to-day. During the period of the _Diary_ his salary as Clerk of the Acts was £350 a year; while in 1665 he was appointed Treasurer of the Tangier Commission, and from 1665 to 1667 he was Surveyor-General of Victualling with an additional £300 a year[81]. His salary as Secretary of the Admiralty was £500 a year, but he only enjoyed this for two periods amounting altogether to ten years. Yet as early as May, 1667, he was worth £6900[82]; and in the end he retired on a competence, and was able to indulge the expensive tastes of the collector. It is evident that his legitimate emoluments must have been supplemented in other ways. Readers of the _Diary_ will remember that on 2 February, 1664, he received from Sir William Warren, the timber merchant, 'a pair of gloves' for his wife 'wrapt up in paper,' which he 'would not open, feeling it hard'; this phenomenon being due to the presence, presumably in the fingers, of 'forty pieces in good gold.' Warren gave him many other presents, and shewed himself 'a most useful and thankful man,'[83] bringing him on one occasion £100 'in a bag,' which Pepys 'joyfully' carried home in a coach, Warren himself 'expressly taking care that nobody might see this business done.'[84] On another occasion Captain Grove gave him money in a paper which Pepys did not open till he reached his office, taking the precaution of 'not looking into it till all the money was out, that I might say I saw no money in the paper if ever I should be questioned about it.'[85] He appears to have profited largely by his transactions with Gauden, the Victualler of the Navy[86]; with the Victuallers for Tangier[87]; and with Captain Cocke, a contractor for hemp[88]. He also made profits out of flags[89], prizes[90], and Tangier freights[91]; and the _Diary_ records other gifts of money and plate[92], including 'a noble silver warming-pan.'[93] On the other hand, the official letters, numbering thousands, conspire to produce by a series of delicate impressions the conviction in the mind of the reader that Pepys was immensely proud of the navy, and keenly anxious for its efficiency and success. His attitude is affected by his fundamental Puritanism, and in the _Diary_ he is always trying to justify to himself the presents which he accepted. He was glad to do the giver a good turn when he could, but it was with the proviso that it should be 'without wrong to the King's service.'[94] The inventor of such a phrase is on dangerous ground, but he is not yet utterly debased; and the high responsibility of his later life may very well have served as an antiseptic to arrest corruption before it had gone far. At any rate, this is as much in advance of the cynical greed of the earlier administrators as it is behind the contempt for all forms of corruption which is natural to well-paid officials educated to modern standards.

In 1673 the Test Act drove the Duke of York from office, and brought about other important changes in the administration of the navy. The King retained in his own hands the Lord High Admiral's patronage and also the Admiralty dues, which were to be collected for his 'only use and behoof'; but the rest of his functions were placed in commission[95]. There were twelve Commissioners, of whom no less than five—the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Privy Seal, and two Principal Secretaries—were great officers of State. Prince Rupert was at the head of the Commission, and Samuel Pepys was appointed Secretary, while the Duke of York, although no longer in office, remained, in spite of the Test Act, an important influence in naval affairs[96]. Pepys was succeeded in the office of Clerk of the Acts by his brother, John Pepys, and his clerk, Thomas Hayter, acting jointly. There were also changes in the composition of the Navy Board, but these did not affect its character as a body of naval experts.

The chief business of the new administrators was to bring to a close the Third Dutch War, and then to repair, by an energetic shipbuilding policy, that depreciation of the navy which was the natural result of the war. In this work they were on the whole successful. The Admiralty Commissioners were sensible and vigilant, and they were remarkably well served by their Secretary; while the Navy Board was strong on the technical side of its work, and fortunate in having as one of its members an official so thoroughly capable in his own department as the great shipbuilder, Sir Anthony Deane. Moreover, although the financial difficulty continued to hamper and cripple the navy, a vigorous shipbuilding policy was made possible by the better support which Parliament now gave to naval expansion. The idea of the importance of sea power had already acquired a considerable hold upon the political classes, and the wars with the Dutch had served to strengthen it. Charles II had read rightly the feeling of his subjects when he allowed his Chancellor to say to the Pension Parliament in the speech which opened its eleventh session: 'There is not so lawful or commendable a jealousy in the world as an Englishman's of the growing greatness of any Prince at sea.'[97] Thus the most important achievement of the period 1673-79 was the Act of 1677—the 17th century equivalent of a modern Naval Defence Act—for the building of 30 new ships. Pepys, now a member of Parliament, made in support of it a comprehensive and vigorous speech[98], and he modestly attributed the adoption of the scheme to the impression this produced upon the House. 'I doubt not,' he writes to the Navy Board, on 23 February, 1677, 'but ere this you may have heard the issue of this morning's debates in the House of Commons touching the navy, wherein I thank God the account they received from me of the past and present state thereof, compared first with one another and then with the naval force of our neighbours as it now is, different from what it ever heretofore has been, was so received as that the debates arising therefrom terminated in a vote for the supplying his Majesty with a sum of money for building ships....'[99] The rates and tonnage of the 30 new ships thus provided for are specified in the Act[100].

The new programme was pushed forward with the utmost energy, but before it was completed the control of the navy again changed hands. In 1679 the excitement of the Popish Plot drove the Duke of York from England, and Pepys was involved in his disgrace. He was accused of conspiring with Sir Anthony Deane to send information about the navy to the French Government and to extirpate the Protestant religion; and was committed to the Tower on the Speaker's warrant[101]. His office at the Admiralty was, however, vacated by what was in form a voluntary resignation[102].

On the withdrawal of the Duke of York and the resignation of Pepys, the higher administration of the navy passed to a new Admiralty Commission of seven, who claimed and enjoyed, in addition to the powers of the previous Commission, those other prerogatives which the King had hitherto reserved to himself[103]. But although they had more power than their predecessors, they were much less competent to use it, for they were almost entirely without naval experience. Sir Henry Capel, the First Commissioner, had nothing to do with the navy until his appointment[104]. The same can be said of Daniel Finch, who, although he became famous afterwards as Earl of Nottingham, was at this time only a young politician just beginning his official life[105]. Sir Thomas Lee's reputation was that of a parliamentary debater[106]; and the other names are not notable. The Commission represents an intrusion of politicians into a sphere where they were quite out of place. The introduction of Lord Brouncker in 1681 was a step in the right direction, although he was not a professional seaman; and other improvements were effected in 1682, but they came too late. The Navy Board was still composed of experts, but they could not stop the mischief wrought by the incompetent authority under which they had to act. The Commissioners did not find a lenient critic in Pepys, and his comment upon them is worth quoting because it contains a shrewd appreciation of Charles II. 'No king,' he wrote in his private _Minute Book_, 'ever did so unaccountable a thing to oblige his people by, as to dissolve a Commission of the Admiralty then in his own hand, who best understands the business of the sea of any prince the world ever had, and things never better done, and put it into hands which he knew were wholly ignorant thereof, sporting himself with their ignorance.'[107] The last phrase brings before us vividly the King's characteristic way.

The result that followed was inevitable. The dockyards were disorganised; the effective force of the fleet was reduced; the reserve of stores was depleted. The Commissioners adopted a wasteful policy of retrenchment at all costs. Pepys writes of 'the effects of inexperience, daily discovering themselves' in the conduct of the Commission[108]; of 'general and habitual supineness, wastefulness, and neglect of order universally spread through' the whole navy[109], so that 'whereas peace used evermore to be improved to the making up the wasteful effects of war, this appears ... to have brought the navy into a state more deplorable in its ships and less relievable from its stores than can be shewn to have happened at the close of the most expenseful war.'[110] His indictment is supported by a formidable array of facts and figures, and as Macaulay points out[111], is confirmed by a report from an expert of the French Admiralty, so it cannot be dismissed as mere denunciation inspired by a natural prejudice against the men who had displaced him.

Things were so bad that in 1684 the Commission was revoked, and from this date until his death the office of Lord High Admiral was once more executed by the King, with the advice and assistance of 'his royal brother the Duke of York'[112]; and on his accession James II became his own Lord High Admiral. The office of Secretary of the Admiralty was revived, and Pepys was appointed thereto; and the government of the navy remained in the same hands until the Revolution.

The important episode of the period 1684-1688 is the appointment of the Special Commission of 1686 for the regeneration of the navy—an experiment in organisation for which Pepys was largely responsible[113]. A sum of £400,000 a year was to be assigned to the navy[114], and this was to be administered by a body of experts, on which the two most important figures were Sir Anthony Deane, the great shipbuilder, and Sir John Narbrough, the hero of the war with Algiers. The Commission was intended to last for a term of three years, the time estimated to be necessary for putting the navy into a state of thorough repair, but its work was performed with such energy and efficiency that the Commission was dissolved in October, 1688, after only 2½ years tenure of office, and the system of government by Principal Officers and Commissioners of the Navy acting under the Lord High Admiral was restored.

The way in which Pepys manœuvred Sir Anthony Deane on to the Commission deserves a passing notice. It was not an easy matter, as Deane replied to a flattering overture by pointing out that his ordinary business as a shipwright was bringing in to him 'more than double the benefit ... the common wages of a Commissioner of the Navy amounts to,' and moreover he was fifteen in family, 'and not without expectation of more.'[115] Pepys was then directed by James II to make a list of all the notable shipbuilders in England, one of whom might be selected as an alternative to Deane. The result was a very libellous and tendencious document[116]. Sir John Tippetts was dismissed because 'his age and infirmities arising from the gout (keeping him generally within doors, or at least incapable of any great action abroad) would render him wholly unable to go through the fatigue of the work designed for Sir Anthony Deane.' The second candidate, Sir Phineas Pett, is briefly dismissed with the words 'In every respect as the first.' Another candidate 'never built a ship in his life ... he is also full of the gout, and by consequence as little capable as the former of the fatigue before mentioned.' Another is 'illiterate ... low-spirited, of little appearance or authority'; his father 'a great drinker, and since killed with it.' Mr Lawrence, the master shipwright at Woolwich, is 'a low-spirited, slow, and gouty man ... illiterate and supine to the last degree.' Another is 'an ingenious young man, but said rarely to have handled a tool in his life'—a mere draughtsman. Another 'is one that loves his ease, as having been ever used to it, not knowing what it is to work or take pains ... and very debauched.' Another is 'a good and painful, but very plain and illiterate man; a Phanatick; of no authority and countenance.' And so he goes on through an appalling list of disqualifications, which had their intended effect upon the King's mind; they induced 'full conviction of the necessity of his prevailing with and satisfying Sir A. D.'[117] Satisfactory terms were arranged[118], and on Saturday, 13 March, 1686, Mr Pepys brought Sir Anthony Deane 'to the King in the morning to kiss his hand, who declared the same to him to his full satisfaction, and afterwards to my Lord Treasurer at the Treasury Chamber with the same mutual content.'[119]

The circumstances in which the second Secretaryship of Samuel Pepys came to an end are part of the general history of England, and need no repetition here. On 21 December, 1688, Pepys mentions that the King was 'a second time withdrawn,'[120] and on Christmas Day we find him writing to the fleet at the bidding of the Prince of Orange[121]. He continued to act as Secretary of the Admiralty until 20 February, 1689, but on 9 March he was directed to hand over his papers to his successor, Phineas Bowles[122]. He was too intimately associated with the exiled James for the government of the Revolution to continue him in power.

LECTURE III

FINANCE

It is scarcely a matter for surprise that those historians who were the first to appreciate the great Puritan movement, so long under a cloud, should have yielded to the temptation of over-emphasizing the contrast between the vigour and comparative purity of government during the Interregnum and its nervelessness and corruption under the Younger Stuarts. That some such contrast exists it is impossible to deny. The Commonwealth navy was on the whole well managed, and every reader of Pepys's _Diary_ knows that he was disposed to regret in private the administrative successes of the treasonable times. 3 June, 1667: 'To Spring Garden, and there eat and drank a little, and then to walk up and down the garden, reflecting upon the bad management of things now, compared with what it was in the late rebellious times, when men, some for fear and some for religion, minded their business, which none now do, by being void of both.' Or again, 4 September, 1668: 'The business of abusing the Puritans begins to grow stale and of no use, they being the people that at last will be found the wisest.' But it is possible, while dwelling upon a moral contrast, to ignore the difference in the financial situation. The virtuous Puritan colonels who controlled the navy under the Commonwealth had command of large financial resources, for confiscations and Royalist compositions were very productive, and the governments of the Interregnum could apply to the raising of taxes irresistible military force. As far as the compositions went, they were, however, living upon capital, and when this was exhausted, the pressure of financial difficulties soon began to be felt. The maintenance of the great professional army came to be a burden too heavy for the resources of the country as they stood in that day, and the navy suffered from the competition of the army for the available funds. The disease usually assigned to the Restoration period declared itself before the Restoration took place, and when the King came back he found the navy already deep in debt. In 1659 nearly half a million was due on account of wages alone, and the total debt must have been over three-quarters of a million[123]. An official report of July, 1659, estimated the outgoings at £20,000 a week, but pointed out that 'since May 31 has not been received above £8000 a week.'[124] It must be remembered that with 17th century money values these figures are very much larger than they look, and as the State had not yet invented funding debt, and so charging it on posterity, its position was that of an extravagant private person. Thus the naval administrators of the Restoration were succeeding to a bankrupt estate, and in the _Diary_ Pepys strikes a note of despair. 31 July, 1660: the navy 'is in very sad condition, and money must be raised for it.' 11 June, 1661: 'now the credit of the Office is brought so low, that none will sell us anything without our personal security given for the same.' 31 August, 1661: 'we are at our Office quiet, only for lack of money all things go to rack.' 30 September, 1661: 'the want of money puts all things, and above all the Navy, out of order.' 28 June, 1662: 'God knows, the King is not able to set out five ships at this present without great difficulty, we neither having money, credit, nor stores.'

The same difficulties were felt before, during, and after the Second Dutch War. In September, 1664, when war was impending, Commissioner Pett tried to buy tallow and candles for the navy at Maidstone, but found the country 'so shy' that they refused to deal[125]. In January, 1666, the Commissioner at Portsmouth wrote that all men distrust London pay[126]. Nearly half the letters to the Navy Board calendared for 1665-6 refer to the difficulties experienced by government agents in obtaining supplies[127]. In this way bargains were lost for want of ready money[128], and where credit was obtained, enormous prices had to be paid[129]. The hardships to private persons were intolerable. A firm of slop-sellers who had supplied goods to the value of £24,800 during the last two years, and had received only £800, would shortly be ruined in their estates and families[130]. A Bristol shipbuilder writes: 'I have so disabled myself in the relief of poor workmen that I am now out of a capacity of relieving mine own family: I have disbursed and engaged for more than I am worth.'[131] The Barber Surgeons' Company claim £1,496. 6_s._ 10_d._, long unpaid, for filling medicine chests, and complain of the opprobrious language they receive from surgeons who can get no pay[132]; and a certain poor widow, a creditor of the government, is in a most deplorable condition, without a stick of wood or coals to lay on the fire, and owing money to about fifteen people as poor as herself, who torment her daily[133].

The total annual charge of the navy in time of peace is not easy to calculate. On 18 February, 1663[134], Pepys himself estimated 'the true charge of the Navy,' since the King's coming in to Christmas last, to have been 'after the rate of £374,743 a year,' but it is not clear what this figure includes. Perhaps the pre-war expenditure may be put at not far short of £400,000. In a letter to Sir Philip Warwick, dated 14 March, 1666[135], he supplies materials for estimating expenditure in time of war. So enormous were the arrears that the sum of £2,312,876 would be needed to pay the fleet and yards to 1 August, 1665, to clear off the arrears of the Victualler and provide victuals for the current year, to finish ten new ships that had been ordered, and to meet wear and tear and wages for the first ten months of 1666. Towards this the total funds available, including a Parliamentary grant of £1,250,000 made in October, 1665, amounted to £1,498,483. Thus there was a deficit of £814,393. But to this would have to be added other charges not included in the first estimate—principally wear and tear and wages for the last two months of 1666, arrears of wages, and other debts, which would increase the deficit to £1,277,161, over and above 'the whole expense of the Office of the Ordnance.' In other words, the funds available for the navy in March, 1666, in the second year of the war, were scarcely more than half its probable requirements[136]. Nevertheless, Pepys derived great consolation from a calculation which he had made of the cost of the First Dutch War in 1653, whereby it appeared that 'the State's charge then seems to have exceeded the King's for the same service and time by £171,785.'[137] This is the justification of a note in the _Diary_ of 16 March, 1669: 'Upon the whole do find that the late times in all their management were not more husbandly than we.' To meet the situation recourse was again had to Parliament, and in October, 1666, the Commons voted £1,800,000, although their suspicion that the money was being wasted led to the appointment of that Commission of Public Accounts which was to give Pepys and his colleagues infinite trouble[138], and was to lay the foundation of Parliamentary enquiry into the proceedings of the executive.