Part 1

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Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).

A carat character is used to denote superscription. A single character following the carat is superscripted (example: A^o). Multiple superscripted characters are enclosed by curly brackets (example: vij^{mo.}).

As noted in the Preface, some [missing words] in the text have been added inside brackets [ ] in this edition. Many archaic and nautical terms are explained in the Footnotes.

More detail can be found at the end of the book.

Publications of the Navy Records Society VOL. LI.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PHINEAS PETT

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PHINEAS PETT

Edited by W. G. Perrin

Printed for the Navy Records Society MDCCCCXVIII

THE COUNCIL

OF THE

NAVY RECORDS SOCIETY

1917-1918

PATRON

THE KING

PRESIDENT

THE RIGHT HON. LORD GEORGE HAMILTON, G.C.S.I.

VICE-PRESIDENTS

CORBETT, SIR JULIAN S., F.S.A.

CUSTANCE, ADMIRAL SIR REGINALD N., G.C.B., K.C.M.G., C.V.O., D.C.L.

FIRTH, PROFESSOR C. H., LL.D., F.B.A.

GRAY, ALBERT, K.C., C.B.

COUNCILLORS

ATKINSON, C. T.

BETHELL, ADMIRAL HON. SIR A.E., K.C.B., K.C.M.G.

BRINDLEY, HAROLD H.

CALLENDER, GEOFFREY A. R.

DARTMOUTH, THE EARL OF, K.C.B.

DESART, THE EARL OF, K.C.B.

DEWAR, COMMANDER ALFRED C., R.N.

GOUGH-CALTHORPE, VICE-ADMIRAL THE HON. SIR SOMERSET A., K.C.B., C.V.O.

GUINNESS, CAPTAIN HON. RUPERT E. C., C.B., C.M.G., M.P., R.N.V.R., AD. C.

KENYON, SIR FREDERIC G., K.C.B., D.Litt., F.B.A.

LEYLAND, JOHN

MARSDEN, R. G.

MILFORD HAVEN, ADMIRAL THE MARQUESS OF, P.C., G.C.B., G.C.V.O., K.C.M.G., LL.D., AD. C.

MURRAY, JOHN, C.V.O.

NEWBOLT, SIR HENRY

OTTLEY, REAR-ADMIRAL SIR CHARLES L., K.C.M.G., C.B., M.V.O.

PARRY, SIR C. HUBERT, BT., C.V.O.

POLLEN, ARTHUR H.

RICHMOND, CAPTAIN HERBERT W., R.N.

ROBINSON, COMMANDER CHARLES N., R.N.

SANDERSON, LORD, G.C.B., K.C.M.G., I.S.O.

SLADE, ADMIRAL SIR EDMOND J. W., K.C.I.E., K.C.V.O.

SMITH, COMMODORE AUBREY C. H., M.V.O., R.N.

TANNER, J. R., Litt.D.

SECRETARY

LIEUT.-COLONEL W. G. PERRIN, O.B.E., R.A.F., Admiralty, S.W.

HON. TREASURER

SIR W. GRAHAM GREENE, K.C.B., Ministry of Munitions, S.W.

THE COUNCIL of the NAVY RECORDS SOCIETY wish it to be distinctly understood that they are not answerable for any opinions or observations that may appear in the Society's publications. For these the responsibility rests entirely with the Editors of the several works.

PREFACE

The manuscript in which Phineas Pett has recorded the story of his life from his birth in 1570 to the end of September 1638, consisted originally of sixty-nine uniform quarto sheets, of which the 52nd is now lost, together with the bottom of the 14th. The handwriting is that of Phineas throughout, but marginal references on the first few pages and a note at the end--'The life of Commissioner Pett's father whose place he did enjoy'--have been added subsequently by Samuel Pepys, no doubt when he was making the transcript referred to below.

The first paragraph is written on a separate sheet, which, unlike the rest, has no writing on the back, and is followed by a series of subtraction sums of the form 1612 - 1570 = 42 giving the age of Phineas for each year from 1612 to 1640. From the differences apparent in the figures and ink it is clear that these calculations were made year by year from the time that Phineas was forty-two until he reached the age of seventy.

A close inspection of the internal construction, the handwriting, and of the ink used, leads to the conclusion that the body of the manuscript, in the form in which it has descended to us, was written up, not at short intervals, but in sections at comparatively long intervals of time. The first and largest of these, written apparently in 1612, narrates the events down to September 1610, and stops at the word 'ordered' on line 15 of page 80 below. The remainder[1] of that paragraph continues on a fresh sheet in a smaller handwriting and different ink, and from that point the ample margin of the earlier pages is abandoned and a small one ruled off with lead pencil. The top line of this page is also ruled, and from this page to the end of the writing the use of these pencil lines persists. The next break is in July 1611 (page 92), where Pett reiterates the statement that he was sent for by Prince Henry. Another break in the writing seems to occur in September 1613; and a very perceptible one, with change of ink, occurs in 1625 at 'All April' (page 134). The final section, as indicated by a further change of ink, begins in February 1631: 'The 23rd of February' (page 146). The various anachronisms observable in the text show that these sections were written up some considerable time after the events occurred. Thus, the references to 'Sir' John Pennington in 1627 and 1628 make it clear that the events of those years were not written up before 1634.

From the great accuracy of the dates given (which have been frequently tested from contemporary sources), it is clear that Phineas kept a diary in which events were recorded as they occurred, and from which the narrative was compiled. He appears to have commenced this diary on going to Chatham in June 1600, when precise dates begin to replace the vague 'about,' 'toward the end,' &c., of the earlier paragraphs.

The narrative stops abruptly in 1638, apparently with the sentence unfinished, for there is no mark of punctuation after the last word. In 1640, when the final section seems to have been written, Pett was an old man, and it is probable that, having been interrupted at this point, the fast-gathering troubles of the State diverted his mind from the subject, or left him without sufficient energy or leisure to pursue it.

It will be noticed that towards the end the composition becomes more slovenly and the omission of words more frequent, as though the task had become burdensome and the author anxious to have done with it.

Pepys copied the whole of the manuscript into the first volume of his Miscellany with the following preface:

'A Journal of Phineas Pett, Esquire, Commissioner of the Navy and father to Peter Pett, late Commissioner of the same at Chatham, viz: from his birth A^o 1570 to the arrival of the Royal Sovereign, by him then newly built, at her moorings at Chatham; transcribed from the original written all with his own hand and lent me to that purpose by his grandson Mr. Phineas, son to Captain Phineas Pett.'

The manuscript afterwards came into the possession of George Jackson, who was Secretary of the Navy Board in 1758 and Second Secretary of the Admiralty from 1766 to 1782. Sir George Duckett (he had changed his surname in 1797) died in 1822, and ten years later his library, including a very valuable collection of naval manuscripts, was sold by auction. Fortunately the manuscripts were purchased by the British Museum after being bought in at the sale; the volume (No. IV) in which this manuscript was contained becoming Additional MS. 9298. A commonplace book (Additional MS. 9295) containing, among copies of various naval documents, an abbreviated version was purchased at the same time.

The copy of the autobiography most generally known is the early eighteenth-century transcript in the Harleian Collection (Harl. 6279). It is to this copy that writers usually refer, possibly because it is mentioned in the paper[2] published in _Archæologia_ in 1796, although the garbled extracts there given are stated to have been taken 'from another copy' and seem, in fact, to have been taken from the original.[3] A further reason for the preference generally shown for the Harleian copy may be its more modern and more clerkly handwriting.

The Harleian transcript is not a good one. It contains few omissions, none of great importance, but mistranscriptions of individual words are very numerous and have reduced the text to nonsense in several places.[4] It may seem strange that writers should be content to quote passages that were evidently incorrect, without looking at another copy, which was easily to be found; but whatever the reason may be, the fact is that hitherto the original has remained unidentified as such.

The best transcript is that made by Pepys; but even he had difficulty in deciphering some of the words, although the handwriting of Pett is, on the whole, very clear and consistent.

In preparing this edition, the Pepysian and Harleian copies have been collated and the missing parts of the original made good by this means; but as the numerous inversions of form and mistakes of reading in these copies have no general interest--and are of no authority in presence of the original--there is no need to specify them in detail.

Considerable licence has been taken with the punctuation of the sentences, which is entirely without system in the original, and the spelling has been modernised in accordance with the rule of the Society, but the composition has been left otherwise untouched. Where some word is necessary to complete the sense it has been added in square brackets [], and the parts now missing from the original, which have been supplied from the transcripts, have been printed in italics. The legal year in England, prior to 1752, did not commence until the 25th March, and Pett usually gives his dates by this reckoning, but in one or two instances he writes as though the year had begun on 1st January and ended on 31st December. To avoid misunderstanding, it may be stated that the dates in the Introduction, headings, and notes are given according to the Julian year, commencing on 1st January.

Pett invariably wrote and signed 'Phinees' but it has been thought better to adhere to the spelling 'Phineas,' which appears from time to time in documents from 1605 onwards and has been universally adopted by modern writers.

In the Introduction an attempt has been made: first, to trace the rise of the Master Shipwright as an official of the Crown and to consider his relation to the profession of shipwrights generally; secondly, to trace the origin of the Pett family and its ramifications down to the date of Phineas' death; thirdly, to throw additional light on the events narrated in the manuscript from such original sources as are accessible. In asking the indulgence of the reader towards the evident shortcomings of this attempt, the Editor would plead that most of the work has had to be carried out under great difficulties in scanty moments of leisure. Despite the generous assistance of Mr. Vincent Redstone of Woodbridge, whose extensive knowledge of Suffolk genealogy has been brought to bear on the problem, it has not been found possible to trace the Pett family to its original location, but it is hoped that sufficient has been done to render this task more easy to some future investigator.

In conclusion the Editor has to thank many friends for the help readily given, more especially Dr. Tanner, who has read the proofs and given the Introduction the benefit of his criticism, and Mr. G. E. Manwaring, of the London Library, who has rendered invaluable help in clearing up many obscure points, and he is indebted to Mrs Scott for the loan of the MS. treatise on shipbuilding referred to in the Introduction. The Editor has also had the great advantage of discussing with Mr. L. G. Carr Laughton the technical questions raised in connexion with the Prince Royal and the Sovereign of the Seas.

W. G. P.

_December 1918._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Probably rewritten when the narrative was taken up again.

[2] By the Rev. S. Denne, _Archæologia_ xii. p. 217.

[3] The words 'and ourselves to sit with the Officers' (page 144), not in the Harleian copy, are in the printed version.

[4] _E.g._ 'Articles' for 'Arches,' p. 14; 'enemy' for 'injury,' p. 26; 'tarried' for 'arrived,' p. 25; 'Frank Moore' for 'Tranckmore,' p. 33; 'perceived' for 'protested,' p. 61; 'care' for 'ease,' p. 104; 'Warwick,' for 'Woolwich' p. 142, &c., &c.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION

The Shipwrights xv

The Family of Pett xlii

Phineas Pett lii

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1

APPENDICES

I. Grant to Phineas Pett 173

II. Petition of Shipwrights 175

III. Charter to Shipwrights' Company (1605) 176

IV. Charter to Shipwrights' Company (1612) 179

V. New Building the Prince Royal 207

VI. Petition to the Admiralty (1631) 210

VII. Letter to Buckingham (1623) 212

VIII. Protest against Building the Sovereign 214

IX. Ships Built or Rebuilt by Phineas Pett 217

X. The Arms of Pett 218

INDEX 219

INTRODUCTION

1.--_The Shipwrights._

It might be supposed that so ancient a craft as that of shipbuilding would have left some trace in contemporary records of its activities, the methods of its technique, and the personalities of those engaged in it. Yet although references to ships and shipping are frequent in the records of this country from the earliest times, and although the shipwright was a distinct class of workman at least as early as the tenth century--probably much earlier--no record of the methods in which he set about the design and construction of ships earlier than the end of the sixteenth century appears to have survived.

It may be presumed that those of our earlier kings who possessed a navy royal, and did not rely entirely on the support of the Cinque Ports and of the merchant shipping, would include among their servants some skilled man to perform the functions of a master shipwright, and if not to design, at any rate to look to the upkeep of the king's ships and to watch the construction in private yards of those intended for the royal service. But if the Clerk of the Ships, who first comes into notice in the reign of John, had any such subordinate, his existence before the end of the reign of Henry V is not known to us. It is, however, possible that, on occasion, this duty was performed by the king's carpenters, whose principal function seems to have been to keep the woodwork of the royal castles in repair. In 1337 forty oaks required in the construction of a galley, then being built at Hull for Edward III under the superintendence of William de la Pole, a prominent merchant of that town, were supplied by the Prior of Blyth, who was directed to hand them over to William de Kelm (Kelham), the king's carpenter (_carpentario nostro_).[5] The accounts for this galley have not survived, and there is no means of ascertaining whether William de Kelm had anything to do with the actual construction. Another galley and a barge were at the same time being built at Lynn under Thomas and William de Melcheburn. The accounts[6] show that the master carpenter (_magister carpentariorum_) of the galley was John Kech, who was paid at the rate of sixpence[7] a day and had under him six carpenters at fivepence a day, six 'clynckers' at fourpence, six holders at threepence, and four labourers (_servientes_) at twopence halfpenny. The master carpenter of the barge was Ralph atte Grene, who received the same rate of pay as Kech. Neither Kech nor Grene appear as the King's servants.

In 1421 the 'King's servant' John Hoggekyns, 'master carpenter of the king's ships,' was granted by letters patent a pension of fourpence a day, 'because in labouring long about them he is much shaken and deteriorated in body,' and this grant was confirmed in December of the following year on the accession of Henry VI. In 1416-18 Hoggekyns had built the Grace Dieu, 'if not the largest, probably the best equipped ship yet built in England.'[8]

With the sale of most of the royal navy on the death of Henry V, the need for a 'master carpenter of the King's Ships' must have passed away, and no trace of any further appointment of this character has been found for over a century. The construction of the Regent in 1486 was entrusted by Henry VII to the Master of the Ordnance, and it seems probable that the design of the Henri Grace à Dieu, built in 1514, was the work of the Clerk of the Ships, Robert Brygandin,[9] although the superintendence of her building was entrusted to William Bond (or Bound), who is described in 1519 as 'late clerk of the poultry, surveyor, and payer of expenses for the construction of the Henri Grace à Dieu and the three other galleys.'[10]

It is not until the later years of Henry VIII's reign that steps appear to have been taken to establish in the royal service a permanent body of men skilled in the art of shipbuilding. From the earliest times of which records exist it had been the practice to send out agents to the various ports to impress the shipwrights, caulkers, sawyers, and other workmen required for the construction and repair of ships of the Royal Navy. This system was no doubt satisfactory while the merchant ship and the royal ship presented no essential points of difference; the latter were, indeed, often let out to hire for mercantile purposes. But when the ship-of-war began to carry a larger number of guns than the trading ship found necessary for her protection--a change that may be roughly dated from the end of the fifteenth century--the methods of construction began to diverge, and the old system of casual impressment must have tended to become less and less satisfactory; so that when Henry, after remodelling the material of the Navy, turned, at the end of his reign, to the improvement of the Administration he no doubt saw the necessity of attracting permanently to his service men capable of directing the art of shipbuilding, as applied to ships of war, in the new channels in which it was henceforth destined to run.

Up to this point, the position of the shipwright--even of the Master Shipwright--was not an exalted one. He was classed among 'servants' and 'artificers,' and his pay was made the subject of legislation expressly designed to keep the wages of those classes as low as possible. In 'Naval Accounts and Inventories of the Reign of Henry VII, 1485-8 and 1495-7,' Mr. Oppenheim has edited material which illustrates the various rates paid to shipwrights, and has pointed out that these rates of pay 'had remained practically unaltered since the days of Henry V.' An Act of Parliament of 1495[11] laid down the following scale of payments:--

_From Candlemas to Michaelmas._

With meat Without and drink, meat and drink, a day a day

Master Ship Carpenter with charge of work and men under him 5_d._ 7_d._

Other Ship Carpenter called a Hewer 4_d._ 6_d._

An able Clincher 3_d._ 5_d._

Holder 2_d._ 4_d._

Master Caulker 4_d._ 6_d._

A mean Caulker 3_d._ 5_d._

Caulker labouring by the tide, for as long as he may labour above water and beneath water, shall not exceed for every tide 4_d._ --

_From Michaelmas to Candlemas._

Master Shipwright 4_d._ 6_d._

Hewer 3_d._ 5_d._

Able Clincher 2½_d._ 4½_d._

Holder 1½_d._ 3_d._

Master Caulker 3_d._ 5_d._

A mean Caulker 2½_d._ 4½_d._

This Act was repealed in 1496, but the same scale was fixed in 1514 by an Act[12] that was not repealed until 1562.

It will be observed that the highest rate under these Acts is sevenpence a day, although in several instances in the accounts[13] referred to above a Master Shipwright was paid eightpence a day.

When Henry VIII instituted[14] the practice of granting by letters patent an annuity for life to certain shipwrights performing the duties of the office known later as 'the Master Shipwright,' he fixed the daily rate upon the basis set forth above, but it must be borne in mind that (as will be shown later) this did not represent the total emoluments of that official, who was in effect raised, both as to emoluments and status, above the class in which he had formerly been placed.

The first of the succession of officials thus established by Henry appears to have been James Baker, who by letters patent[15] dated the 20th May 1538 was granted, as from Michaelmas 1537, an annuity for life of fourpence a day, the lowest rate of a Master Shipwright, or Master Ship Carpenter as he was alternatively called by the Acts referred to. The entry in the Roll is of some interest; unlike the later grants, this grant is not based upon past services, but solely upon services which are to be rendered in the future,[16] and the authority for the letters patent is not the usual writ of privy seal, but the direct motion of the King: 'per ipsum Regem.' In December 1544 new letters patent were issued,[17] in which Baker is described as a 'Shipwright' and the annuity (_annuitatem sive annualem redditum_) fixed at eightpence a day. In January of the same year, Peter Pett, 'Shipwright,' had by letters patent been granted a wage and fee (_vadium et feodum_) of sixpence a day for life, as from Michaelmas 1543, 'in consideration of his good and faithful service done and to be done'; from which it appears that Peter Pett was already in the royal service. It is probable that the increase in Baker's annuity was intended to mark his superior position in relation to Pett.