Restoration (June 1660) Batten was reinstated in his office of surveyor of the navy; in the exercise of its duties his remaining years were passed, during which time, through the pleasant pages of Pepys's Diary, we seem to become almost personally acquainted with him. Pepys was often very much out of humour with Batten, though he continued throughout on good terms with him; and much of what we read in the Diary must be attributed to some passing pique. To say that in an age of almost universal corruption Batten's official hands were not quite clean is unnecessary; but there is something ridiculous in Pepys and Sir W. Warren discoursing on Batten's iniquities for some four hours on end, forgetful even of eating or drinking (4 July 1662); or on another occasion adjourning to a tavern to talk ‘of the evils the king suffers in our ordering of business in the navy, as Sir W. Batten now forces us by his knavery’ (5 May 1664). The relations of Pepys and Warren to each other were of such a nature as to permit us to suspect that Batten's ‘knavery’ may have largely shown itself in restraining the greed of the clerk of the acts or in insisting on a just interpretation of the clauses of a contract (e.g. 10 Feb. 1662–3, 2 Feb. 1663–4, 16 Sept. 1664; cf. MS. Sloane 2751). There is, in fact, no reason to suppose that Batten ever exceeded the bounds of what was then considered fair and right; and the story of Batten's cowardice (4 June 1664) as related to Pepys by Coventry, who said he had it from the king, is probably false (29 Aug. 1648); though it is quite possible that he may have shown marks of agitation, of a spirit torn with conflicting emotions, which the king thought a fitting subject for jest. In 1665 Batten had a serious illness, and lay for four or five days at the point of death. ‘I am at a loss,’ wrote Pepys (7 Feb. 1664–5), ‘whether it will be better for me to have him die, because he is a bad man, or live, for fear a worse should come.’ He revived, however, and lived on for another two years and a half. On 4 Oct. 1667 Pepys notes: ‘Sir W. Batten is so ill that it is believed he cannot live till to-morrow, which troubles me and my wife mightily, partly out of kindness, he being a good neighbour, and partly because of the money he owes me.’ He died on the early morning of 5 Oct., ‘having been but two days sick;’ and on the 12th ‘the body was carried, with a hundred or two of coaches, to Walthamstow, and there buried.’ From 1661 he had sat in parliament as member for Rochester, and since June 1663 had held the honourable post of master of the Trinity House. He was twice married, and left a son and daughter both grown up and married.
[Calendars of State Papers, Domestic, 1619–67. There is in these, as yet, a gap, 1642–8, during a very interesting period, which is only imperfectly filled up by the numerous references and extracts in Penn's Memorials of the Professional Life and Times of Sir William Penn; A true Relation of what passed between the fleet of his Highness the Prince of Wales and that under the command of the Earl of Warwick (4to, 1648); Pepys's Diary, ed. Bright, where the name occupies nearly three columns in the index.]
BATTIE, WILLIAM (1704–1776), physician, son of Edward Battie, rector of Modbury, Devonshire, was born there in 1704. He was a king's scholar at Eton, and in 1722 entered King's College, Cambridge. In 1724 he was a candidate for the Craven scholarship, and, the electors being equally divided, the appointment lapsed after a year to the founder's family, when Lord Craven gave it to Battie. Battie in 1747 founded a similar scholarship at Cambridge worth 20l. a year, which was called after him, and he nominated the scholars during his lifetime. He graduated B.A. in 1720, M.A. in 1730, and M.D. in 1737. He began to practise physic at Cambridge, and gave anatomical lectures at King's College (H. Walpole, Letters, i. xii.). In 1728 he published an edition of Aristotle's ‘Rhetoric,’ and in 1729 one of Isocrates' ‘Orations.’ The latter was ridiculed in some verses by Dr. Morell, published in the ‘Grub Street Journal,’ 1730; it was republished, with additions, in two volumes in 1749. He afterwards settled at Uxbridge. On one occasion Godolphin, the provost of Eton, although in good health, sent a coach and four for him in order to raise his reputation. He made 500l. at Uxbridge, and then settled in London, where he soon gained a large practice. In 1738 he married the daughter of Barnham Goode, under-master at Eton. A fortune of over 20,000l. was left to him soon afterwards by some cousins. He became fellow of the College of Physicians in 1738; censor in 1743, 1747, and 1749; Harveian orator in 1746; and president in 1764. He was Lumleian orator from 1749 to 1754. He was physician to St. Luke's Hospital for some years, resigning the post in 1764, and was proprietor of a large private lunatic asylum. In 1750 he took part in the dispute between the College of Physicians and Dr. Schomberg, which involved an expensive litigation; he was attacked for his part in this affair in the ‘Battiad,’ 1751 (by Moses Mendez), which is reprinted in Dilly's ‘Repository,’ 1776. In 1763 he was examined with Dr. Monro before a committee of the
