[88] In 1487, Thomas Rogers, clerk of the King's ships, was paid
xxvi_s._ viij_d._ for his expenses in going to Harwich, and
victualling the King's ships there. See _Material Illustrative of the
Reign of Henry VII_, vol. ii. p. 143.
[89] _Administration_, p. 74.
[90] _P.R.O., H.C.A._ 7 (1), 'probos viros Petrum Pette et Johannem
Moptye villae Harewici (_and two others_) fabros lignarios, anglice
shipwrights.'
[91] Richard Pett of London, gent. (elsewhere described as 'unus
valettorum regis') in 1593 sold his share of the property at Deptford
to his brother Peter Pett, of Wapping. This property had been bought
by his father in 1566.
[92] Printed by the Parker Society in _Select Poetry_, vol. ii. p.
386.
[93] The following errors may be noted: p. 149, the name 'Marcy'
should be 'March'; p. 151, the William Pett who petitioned the
Admiralty in 1631, was not the son of Joseph but a much older man,
apparently belonging to another branch of the family; p. 157, the
dates of the death of Phineas' second wife and of his third marriage
are antedated by a year; p. 158, the date 'July' was an error of the
Harl. transcriber; the dates of birth and death of Phineas, junior,
are incorrect; p. 172, Joseph Pett of Chatham was not the son of
Phineas, but of Joseph of Limehouse, and he was born in 1592 not 1608.
3.--_Phineas Pett._
[Sidenote: Education.]
From the care that had been taken to provide for his education, and
from the fact that it was only at the 'instant persuasion' of his
mother that he was 'contented' to be apprenticed as a shipwright, it
may be inferred that Phineas had been destined for the Church or the
Law, and that Peter Pett did not propose that his son should follow
in his own footsteps. The peculiarity[94] of the name chosen for
him (which no doubt refers, not to the disobedient son of Eli, but
to 'Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest,' who
received 'the covenant of an everlasting priesthood')[95] gives rise
to the surmise that his parents had intended him for the Church, but
whatever the intention may have been, it was certainly abandoned on
the death of his father.
Phineas does not seem to have profited greatly from his studies at
Cambridge. He was hardly a master of English; possibly he had a good
knowledge of Latin, for the influence of the Latin idiom is to be
seen in almost all his periods; but the fact that he had subsequently
to practise 'cyphering' in the evenings does not imply any great
acquirements in mathematics, even of the very elementary forms which
at that period were sufficient for the solution of the few problems
arising in connection with the design of ships. Nevertheless, he
received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1592 and that of Master in
1595.
If the statement that he spent the two years of his apprenticeship
to Chapman 'to very little purpose' is to be accepted literally, it
would seem that the misfortunes that subsequently befell him must
have aroused latent energies and filled him with determination to
master the details of his future profession when he returned to
England in 1594. His voyage to the Levant and subsequent employment
as an ordinary workman under his brother Joseph no doubt gave him a
practical acquaintance with ships that enabled him to profit greatly
by the instruction of Mathew Baker, although apparently this only
extended over the winter of 1595-6. Pett's confession that it was
from Baker that he received his 'greatest lights,' written, as it
must have been, after he had found Baker an 'envious enemy' and an
'old adversary to my name and family,' indicates how great that
assistance was. This is borne out by a letter[96] which he wrote
to Baker in April 1603, in order to deprecate the old man's wrath,
which had been aroused when Phineas, then Assistant Master Shipwright
at Chatham, commenced work on the Answer. The letter was partially
destroyed by the fire which damaged the Cottonian Library in 1731,
but fortunately Pepys had copied it in his Miscellanea.[97]
SIR,--My duty remembered unto you. It is so that I received a message
from you by Richard Meritt, the purveyor, concerning the Answer, who
gave me to understand from you that you were informed I meant to break
up the ship and to lengthen, and that I should no further proceed
till I received further order from you. Indeed the ship was heaved up
by general consent, both of my Lord, some of the Principal Officers,
and two of the Master Shipwrights which were here present at the
time she was begun to be hauled up, no determination being resolved
upon what should be done unto her; for which cause (other haste of
businesses also being some hindrance) she hath lain still ever since,
till now that it pleased Sir Henry Palmer to command she should be
blocked and searched within board only, and so let alone, partly
because our men wanting stuff to perfect other businesses had little
else to do, as also to the intent she might be made ready to be the
better viewed and surveyed lying upright, being somewhat also easier
for the ship. This is now done, but I ensure you there was no intent
or other purpose to proceed in anything upon her any further till
the Master Shipwrights, especially yourself who built her, had first
surveyed her, and under your hands set down what should be done unto
her; and therefore, good Mr. Baker, do not give so much credit to
those that out of their malice do advertise you untruth concerning
either this or any other matter, for it is supposed by whom this
hath been done, and he is generally thought to be no other than an
Ambodexter[98] or rather a flat sheet,[99] being so far off from
either procuring credit to himself by due execution of his place
and discharge of his duty, that like Aesop's Dog he doth malice any
other that is willing to give him precedent of better course than
all men can sufficiently in this place report himself to follow. And
for myself it is so sure[100] from me to understand anything that
you should think any ways prejudicial unto you, or to any of your
works, that you shall always rather find me dutiful as a servant to
follow your directions and instructions in any of these businesses,
than arrogant as a prescriber or corrector of anything done by you,
whose ever memorable works I set before me as a notable precedent and
pattern to direct me in any work that I do at any time undertake, and
you yourself can say, setting private jars aside, which I hope are
all now at a final end, but that I ever both reverenced you for your
years and admired you for your Art, in the which I know (to speak
without flattery) no Artist in Christendom of our profession able
in any respect to come near you. Therefore, good Mr. Baker, carry
but that loving mind towards me as you shall find my loving duty to
you to deserve, who you shall find always as ready to do you any
service, either in this place or any other, as any servant of yours
whatsoever, among whose rank I account myself one of the unworthiest,
for although I served no years in your service, yet I must ever
acknowledge whatever I have of any art (if I have any) it came only
from you. Thus hoping this shall suffice to give you satisfaction in
this behalf, I humbly take my leave, ever resting ready to do you
service.
_Chatham this 10 April, 1603._
Your Servant,
PHINEAS PETT.
To the worshipful and my loving friend Mr. Mathew Baker, one
of his Majesty's Master Shipwrights, give this at Woolwich or
elsewhere.
This expression of opinion upon Baker's capacity was evidently quite
genuine, for many years after, when the old man was dead and there
was nothing to be feared from his enmity, Phineas wrote of him as
'the most famous artist of his time.'[101]
[Sidenote: Preferment.]
Phineas did not rely on his professional skill alone to gain him
preferment. When in his brother Joseph's employment, he laid out
his earnings in clothing himself 'in very good fashion, always
endeavouring to keep company with men of good rank, far better
than myself.' By means of a friend thus gained, he obtained an
introduction to the Lord Admiral, which was 'the very first
beginning' of his rising. No doubt Nottingham had known his father,
and it is certain that he was well acquainted with his brother Peter;
it is probably to this that the 'extraordinary respect' and the later
favours of the Admiral were due. These favours brought upon him
the 'malicious envy' of the Master Shipwrights, who were no doubt
aggrieved at seeing employment that might have provided them or their
friends with 'pickings,' handed to a newcomer.
The post of a purveyor of timber was not without its perquisites, and
Pett's thankfulness that 'nothing could be proved against him' when
the accounts of his doings in Suffolk and Norfolk were scrutinised,
indicates that his labours had not been without some profit to
himself; indeed his association with Trevor, who became an able
disciple of the arch-thief Mansell, leads one to suspect that Fulke
Greville's action in 'wrongfully' cutting off twenty pounds was not
the high-handed injustice that Phineas would have one believe. It is
true that Mr. Oppenheim[102] dates the 'administrative degeneracy'
of the Navy Office from Greville's treasurership, but it is probable
that this arose from Greville's incapacity to exercise the strict
control which had characterised his predecessor Hawkyns, and not from
want of integrity. Three years later Phineas affirms that Greville
continued his 'heavy enemy' because the Treasurer could not win him
'to such conditions as he laboured me in' against the Surveyor, a
state of affairs that seems to indicate a half-hearted attempt at
reform on Greville's part, rather than any underhand conspiracy.
In an anonymous account of the quarrel at Chatham in 1602 preserved
in Pepys' Miscellanea,[103] written evidently by George Collins, 'the
principal informer and stirrer in this business,'[104] it is stated
that the writer told Sir Henry Palmer that Pett
had sold away the Repulse's foretopmast, and that through his
negligence the Crane was bilged in the Dock, which cost the Queen
100_l._
whereupon Palmer called him a rogue, and asked him if he never stole
anything, and then struck him with a cudgel;
and no wonder! though Sir Henry took his part so much, for in
six weeks after he had great masts sawed out into boards at the
Queen's charge, a long boat full, and towed down to Whitechapel
by Boatswain Vale, or his man, at a ketch's stern.
At the term after, I served Phineas Pett upon a battery, and Sir
John and Sir Henry procured my Lord Admiral's warrant to send
me to the Marshalsea. But that I paid well for it in Mr. Pope's
house I had gone thither; and so was forced to agree with Phineas
and to enter into bond never to follow suit against him, neither
for the King nor yet for myself.'
The writer then goes on to give instances of Pett's misappropriations
of materials and labour; four tons of elm timber sawn into boards;
fifty deals from the storehouse; fifty small spars; two four-inch
planks to make a bridge into his meadow; labour for two or three
days; a sluice made in the meadow at a cost of 3_l._ or 4_l._;
two or three tons of oak timber sawn into posts to hang clothes
on and painted at the Queen's cost. Although the writer has an
obvious grievance against Pett, there seems no reason to doubt the
substantial accuracy of the charges made.
[Sidenote: The Resistance, and the Voyage to Spain.]
One of the gravest indictments subsequently brought by the Commission
of Inquiry of 1608-1609 against Phineas was that relating to the ship
which he had laid down in David Duck's private yard at Gillingham in
1604, when both he and Duck were shipwrights at Chatham. From the
account of it presented by Phineas[105] it might be supposed that
the charge related merely to the sale of ordnance and ammunition to
the Spaniards, but the malpractices alleged went much further than
that; and, although Pett was cleared by the King, an examination of
the evidence produced before the Commission leads to the conclusion
that 'those scandalous and false informations' might have led to very
unpleasant results if the King had not been biased in his favour. The
story, as made out from the existing documents,[106] is briefly as
follows:
The ship--a small one of about 160 tons--had been built largely of
timber delivered 'for the King's use at Chatham' and with articles
'borrowed out of the store,' under warrant of the Principal
Officers, two of whom, Mansell and Trevor, subsequently had shares
in her. She was rigged 'with the rigging of the Foresight, which for
bare 12_l._ only he bought out of her' at much less than the value,
by the favour of the Surveyor (Trevor) and the Treasurer (Mansell),
so that 'she was sailed with the King's sails and rigged with the
King's tackling.' When she set sail for Spain in 1605 'under colour
of a transporter of my Lord Admiral's provisions,' she was furnished
out of the King's store with cables, anchors, flags, pitch, and other
stores and provisions, including 600 cwt. of biscuit. She also drew
120 bolts of canvas for the use of the fleet, part of which was sold
by Pett's brother, and for the whole of which Phineas acknowledged
himself responsible. Although taken up as a transport and paid
wages and tonnage (on a false rating of 300 tons, about twice her
capacity) she was entered in the Customs as a merchantman bound for
San Lucar, and carried 60 tons of lead for a merchant of London
named Alabaster, for which 60_l._ was received as freight. At Lisbon
Pett sold a demi-culverin of brass, captured at Cadiz in 1596, with
ammunition and a quantity of bread, biscuit, and peas belonging to
the fleet, for which he received 300_l._, which he sent, 'by the way
of exchange,' to Trevor and Mansell, then at Valladolid[107] with
Nottingham, who had gone there to ratify the peace recently concluded
between the two countries. Altogether, the voyage of this ship cost
the King '800_l._ or 1000_l._, as appeareth by the accounts, for
little or no service done at all.'
As regards the money sent to Valladolid, it is probable that this was
used in paying some of the expenses of the embassy, and that this
proceeding had the sanction of Nottingham; but Pett's answers before
the Commission to some of the other charges, as given in his signed
deposition of 12th May 1608, seem rather weak. He stated that the
'riggings' of the Foresight were 'found to be so ill that they stood
him in little or no stead,' that the accounts for the provisions were
delivered to Sir John Trevor and no copies had been kept, and, by a
convenient lapse of memory, he could not say what persons or stuff
were landed at the Groyne 'nor what burden the ship was accounted
for to the King.' When asked by Captain Morgan to set him down on
the east side of the Groyne, he was alleged to have said that 'he
could not adventure the ship by his directions for that she was no
part of the fleet,' in reply to which allegation he swore that to the
best of his recollection no such words were ever used. It appears
from the evidence that Sir Richard Leveson had refused to allow the
ship as one of the fleet, but he had died shortly after the return
to England, and after his death Mansell and Trevor, 'assuming full
power into their own hands,' had reversed the decision. One reason
given by Pett for visiting ports other than that to which the fleet
had gone is of interest; he told the Commission that he had been
informed by Trevor and Mansell that the biscuit would not be needed
for the fleet 'by reason of the short voyage my Lord Admiral had into
Spain,' and he was to go to Lisbon or San Lucar to sell it, 'and that
they reported as from my Lord Admiral that because this deponent was
a shipwright he might in the harbours where he should put in take
view of the Spanish ships and galleys and of the manner of their
building.'
With a ship so cheaply built and rigged, and employed on such
favourable terms, it could not have been difficult to make a handsome
profit, and it is little wonder that Pett calls her a 'lucky ship'
when he tells of her sale in 1612.
[Sidenote: Commission of Inquiry.]
The corruption in the administration of the Navy, which had begun to
appear in the last years of Elizabeth's reign, had by 1608 reached
such a height that James was at length forced to take some steps
in regard to it. The knowledge that Spain was actively engaged in
setting her navy in order no doubt quickened the King into action and
provided a motive powerful enough to sweep aside for the time the
obstruction of the senile Nottingham and his jackal Mansell. At first
it had been intended that Nottingham should head the Commission,
and letters patent[108] were passed on 1st April 1608, in which his
name appears first, Northampton coming second, but for some reason
this was altered, and on the 30th April a commission under the great
seal was issued to Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, then Lord
Privy Seal and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Charles Howard, Earl
of Nottingham, the Lord High Admiral, and thirteen others,[109] of
whom Sir Robert Cotton, the famous antiquary, was the most active.
Northampton, who was Nottingham's cousin, seems to have been the
leader of the reform party, and although he is persistently vilified
by Pett, there is little doubt that he was actuated by a more or less
sincere desire (sharpened, possibly, by mutual antagonism between
the offices of Lord Warden and Lord High Admiral) to reform the many
existing abuses. What all these abuses were would take too long in
telling, but they were sufficient to justify, and more than justify,
the vigorous language of the patent, which speaks of the
'very great and intolerable abuses, deceits, frauds, corruptions,
negligences, misdemeanours and offences' that 'have been and
daily are perpetrated, committed, and done against the continual
admonitions and direction of you our High Admiral by other the
officers of and concerning our Navy Royal, and by the Clerks
of the Prick and Check, and divers other inferior officers,
ministers, soldiers, mariners, and others serving, working, or
labouring in and about our said Navy.'
The patent then proceeds to give instructions for the examination of
all officials who have been connected with the Navy since 1598 and
the investigation of their accounts,
minding that the said intolerable abuses, frauds, misdemeanours,
and offences shall forthwith be enquired of, the offenders
therein condignly punished and also to provide a speedy reform of
the same for the time to come.
Possibly, at the time, James really intended to reform the
administration. Nottingham kept out of the way, and his subordinates
had an unpleasant time while they were examined upon their misdeeds;
but in the end, James' fear of Spain having passed away, he, with
his usual weakness, let the offenders off with a lecture.
The Commission commenced to sit in May 1608 and sat for a little
over a year, ending with the proceedings before the King recorded
on pp. 68-69 below. During this period 161 witnesses were examined,
and their signed depositions taken. These are preserved among the
manuscripts of Sir Robert Cotton,[110] who acted as the secretary.
They were analysed by Cotton, who drew up a lengthy report[111] in
which various abuses are set forth and proposals made for their
remedy; the latter, as might be expected, were duly ignored by
the King. Among the offenders cited by name, Pett appears as one
of the chief, and although the present occasion is not convenient
for a general examination of the report and evidence, some mention
must be made of the matters in which Pett is directly charged with
wrong-doing.
The first point made against him is that while he was keeper of the
timber store at Chatham he had failed to reject bad timber and plank
brought in by one of the purveyors. His answer to this was 'that Sir
Henry Palmer had been so quick with him for some of these exceptions
as he would complain no more though the purveyors brought in faggot
sticks.' He is next charged with certain malpractices in connexion
with the Resistance, and other charges on this account are brought
against him further on; these have already been referred to. In a
general charge against the Master Shipwrights that, for reasons
of private gain, ships were repaired 'when they were not worth the
labour nor the charges bestowed on them,' the case of the Victory is
cited as an example:
Thus did the Victory for transportation, docking and breaking up
stand the king in four or five hundred pounds, and yet no one
part of her at this day serviceable to any use about the building
of a new as was pretended for a colour. To conclude, though we
set her at a rate of 200_l._, yet it had been better absolutely
for the King to have given her away to the poor than to have been
put to the charge of bringing her from Chatham to Woolwich, no
other use having been made of her than to furnish Phineas Pett
(that was the only author of her preservation) with fuel for the
diet of those Carpenters which he victualled.
In complaining that estimates for repair were made blindfold, with
the result that money was spent upon old ships more than sufficient
to have built new ones, the illustration is again drawn from Pett's
proceedings:
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 3576_l._, 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
7600_l._ 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 800_l._, 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.