Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/546

520 P E P Y S death in 1680 to Pepys himself. In July 1662 he was made a younger brother of the Trinity House. Pepys s untiring industry in office, his prudence, his unfailing usefulness, his knowledge of business, which he was ever diligent to increase, and his general integrity secured him the greatest confidence at headquarters. As early as August 1662, when placed on the Tangier com mission, he had found himself "a very rising man." In March 1664/5 he was made treasurer to the commission, and received also the contract for victualling the garrison, both lucrative appointments ; and in October, through the influence of Sir W. Coventry, he was further made sur veyor-general of the victualling office, a post which he resigned at the conclusion of the peace. His conduct during the Great Plague, when, alone of all the navy board, he stayed in the city of the dead and carried on the whole administration of the navy, was admirable. During the Fire also his readiness and presence of mind were of the greatest service in staying the conflagration. In the spring of 1667/8, in the blind rage at the national disgrace generally termed the miscarriage of Chatham, the whole navy board were summoned before the House of Commons to give an account of their con duct. Pepys was deputed by his colleagues to conduct the defence, and he did so with complete success on 5th March in a speech of three hours duration, which gained him great reputation. In 1669 the increasing weakness of his eyesight com pelled him to discontinue the Diary, his last entry being on 31st May. What was to us an irremediable misfortune was to Pepys "almost as much as to see myself go into the grave." He now took leave of absence and spent some months in travelling through France and in revisiting Holland. On the day of his return his wife fell ill, and died in the early spring, before 3d March 1669/70. In July 1669 Pepys stood as the duke of York s nominee, backed by the Howard influence, for the borougli of Aldborough in Suffolk, but was defeated. In November 1670 we find him engaged in a quarrel with the Swedish resident, which was likely to have been followed by a duel, as Pepys, doubt less to his exceeding comfort (for he was a great coward), received an order from the king neither to send nor accept a challenge. In 1672 he was promoted to the secretary ship of the admiralty ; and, when James resigned his office of lord high admiral, Pepys did all the work until the commission was appointed. He was placed also upon the new commission for Tangier. In June 1673 he was chosen at a by-election, again as James s nominee, for Castle Rising, a Howard borough, but a vote of the committee of privileges declared the election void. Pepys, on the authority of Sir J. Banks and the earl of Shaftesbury, was denounced before the House of Commons as being a Papist ; but, when these persons were called upon, they denied any definite knowledge of the altar and crucifix which he was charged with having in his house. The parliament being prorogued, he retained his seat, and is recorded as speaking on 17th May and 26th October 1675, on the latter occasion against the pro posal made, in distrust of the crown, to lodge the money for the ships in the chamber of London instead of in the exchequer; and again on llth May 1678, in the debate on the king s message to quicken supply for the navy, when he was sharply reproved by Sir R. Howard for speaking " rather like an admiral than a secretary, I and we, " an amusing instance of how completely Pepys had obtained control of the business of the navy and had identified himself with the work. He was afterwards, in 1678/9, returned for Harwich (see a note on p. 122 of vol. vi. of Bright s edition of the Diary}. In the list, however, of members of the parliament which met on 6th March in that year, which is given by the Parliamentary History (vol. iv. p. 1082), the members for Harwich are recorded as being Sir Anthony Deane and Sir Thomas Pepys. An investigation of the records of Harwich leaves no doubt that the Parliamentary History is wrong upon this point, and that Pepys did sit for the borough during this parliament. On 7th August 1677 Pepys was elected master of the Clothworkers Company, who still possess the silver cup he gave them on the occasion. He continued to hold the secretaryship until 1679, when fresh complaints of mis carriages in the navy were made before the House. The country was then in the throes of the popish terror. Pepys was accused, on the evidence of one Colonel Scott, an in famous character, "a very great vindicator of the Sala manca doctor" (Intelligencer, 20th May 1681), of sending secret information regarding the English navy to France (Intelligencer, 23d May 1681), and was again charged with being a Papist. On 22d May he was sent, nominally on the first charge, though really on the second, to the Tower, with his colleague Sir Anthony Deane. As he himself wrote to James on 6th May, " a papist I must be, whether I will or no, becaiise favoured by your royal highness." On 2d June he appeared before the King s Bench, and was remanded three times, bail being refused by Jones, the attorney-general. At length Pepys was allowed out on bail for 30,000. The trial was four times postponed, in the hope that evidence would be obtained, and at la.st on 12th February 1680 he was released only because Scott refused to swear to his depositions, and no prosecutor ap peared, and because his old servant, who had given evidence against him, being now on his deathbed, confessed that it was utterly false. This illustrates admirably the wild in justice that prevailed during that feverish time. In April 1680 Pepys attended the king by command to Xewmarket, and there took down in shorthand from his own mouth the narrative of his escape from Worcester. His post had meantime been abolished, or at any rate the con stitution of the navy board changed. We find him writing to James on 6th May 1679, asking leave to lay down " this odious secretaryship," and to be placed on the commission of the navy. James urged his claims upon Charles, but the imprisonment in the Tower probably put an end to the affair. In May 1682 Pepys accompanied James when he took the government of Scotland, and while there made with Colonel Legge a tour of the chief towns. In the autumn of 1683 he sailed with the same Colonel Legge, then Lord Dartmouth, on the expedition to destroy the fortifications of Tangier, though not aware when he started of the object of the expedition. The ships reached Tangier on Friday, 14th September. Here he stayed, with the exception of a short visit to Spain, until 5th March, and arrived in London on 6th April. On his return Pepys was again made secretary to the admiralty. In this same year (1684) he was elected pre sident of the Royal Society. At the coronation of James II. he figured as one of the barons of the Cinque Ports; and he sat in James s parliament for his old seat of Har wich along with his former colleague Sir Anthony Deane, a fact which illustrates how completely the crown had regained possession of political power in the boroughs. He lost both his seat and his secretaryship at the Revolu tion, though he was consulted on navy matters to the time of his death. Having been rejected at Harwich in the new elections, he tried in vain to find another seat. His well-known intimacy with and regard for James made him a special object of suspicion to the Government, and in 1690, in common with others suspected for similar reasons, though without cause, he was suddenly arrested and sent to the Gate House, but was almost immediately released,