Samuel Pepys and the Royal Navy/Lecture 3

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^[1]. 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.'^[2] 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' ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/51 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/52 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/53 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/54 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/55 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/56 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/57 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/58 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/59 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/60 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/61 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/62 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/63 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/64 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/65 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/66 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/67 ​Page:Samuel Pepys and the royal navy ; Lees Knowles lectures delivered at Trinity College in Cambridge, 6, 13, 20 and 27 November 1919 (IA samuelpepysandro00tann).pdf/68