Pepys, Samuel

(1633 -1703)

Information

In his capacity as Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board (and later as Secretary to the Admiralty) Samuel Pepys was a frequent visitor to Chatham Dockyard. Despite the air of levity and occasional coarseness to be found in his famous diary, Pepys was one of the most hard-working members of the Navy Board; his trips to Chatham encompassed a busy schedule of meetings with Commissioner Petts in charge of the dockyard, inspection of new ships, a visit to the newly built Rope House in 1665 and a critical eye on the dockyard expansion. One of his early visits there, not long after his appointment as Clerk of the Acts, records his unaffected delight in his new-found status:
8th April 1661
‘And in general, it was a great pleasure all the time I stayed here, to see how I am respected and honoured by all people; and I find that I begin to know how to receive so much reverence, which at the beginning I could not tell how to do.’
This note of self-satisfaction is entirely missing from his diary entries in June 1667 which convey a real sense of fear and panic that affected the whole Court as a Dutch fleet attacked the uncompleted fort at Sheerness, captured the town, sailed unhindered up the Medway, broke through a chain across the river, burned three British ships anchored at Chatham and captured another. Pepys sent his wife and father away with what money he could find, gave his diary into safekeeping, made his will and then conscientiously continued his job of arranging the emergency fitting out of fireships to be deployed in the Thames.

Quotations

12th June 1667
Up very betimes to our business at the office, there hiring of more fireships; and at it close all morning. …and so home, where all our hearts do now ake; for the news is true, that the Dutch have broke the Chain and burned our ships, and perticularly the Royall Charles; other perticulars I know not, but most sad to be sure. And the truth is, I do fear so much that the whole kingdom is undone … So God help us , and God knows what disorders we may fall into and whether any violence on this office, or perhaps some severity on our persons, as being reckoned by the silly people, or perhaps may by policy of state be though fit to be condemned by the King and Duke of York, and so put to trouble; though God knows I have in my own person done my full duty, I am sure….
13th June 1667
No sooner up but hear the sad news confirmed, of the Royall Charles being taken by them and now in fitting by them (which Pett should have carried up higher by our several orders, and deserves therefore to be hanged for not doing it) and burning several others, and that another fleet is come up into the Hope … which put me into such a fear that I presently resolved of my father’s and wife’s going into the country; and at two hours warning they did go by the coach this day – with about 1300l in gold in their night-bag … They gone, I continued in frights and in fear what to do with the rest…Every minute some[one] or other calls for this order or that order; and so I be forced to be at the office most of the day about the fireship which are to be suddenly fitted out; and it’s a most strange thing that we hear nothing from any of my Brethren at Chatham; so that we are wholly in the dark, various being the reports of what is being done there…