The Autobiography of Phineas Pett
All this year of 1599, I spent wholly in this service, in which time
these occurrences happened.
After the decease of my dear and loving mother there were left under
the keeping of my father-in-law,[216] Thomas Nunn, then Minister of
Weston in Suffolk, three sisters, vide: Abigail Pett, Elizabeth and
Mary, the youngest, and one brother named Peter Pett, who was put
out to a gentleman's house in Suffolk to teach his children, the
daughters remaining all at home with him, he being then lately again
married.
He used himself to them as a stern and cruel father-in-law, not
contented that he had brought a general ruin upon my mother's whole
family by cosening us of all that was left us, but proceeded further,
even to blood, for upon a slight occasion about making clean his
cloak, being wet and dirty with riding a journey the day before, he
furiously fell upon my eldest sister Abigail, beating her so cruelly
with a pair of tongs and a great firebrand that she died within three
days upon that beating and was privately by his means buried; but God
that would not let murder pass unrevenged, stirred up the hearts of
his own parishioners and neighbours, who, complaining to the Justice,
caused the body to be taken up, and so by the coroner's inquest that
passed upon her and miraculous tokens of the dead corpse, as fresh
bleeding, sensible opening of one of her eyes, and other things, he
was found guilty of her death and so committed and bound over to
answer the matter at next General Assizes to be held at Bury, which
was in the Lent after, being in this year 1599, and in the time of my
employment in Suffolk and Norfolk.
Upon his committing, my two other poor sisters were put by the
justices to the keeping of the town of Weston, till the assizes[217]
were past, at whose hands I received them at Bury in a miserable
fashion, not having clothes nor any necessaries fit for them; the
charge of their board I was glad to defray to the constable, and
all the charge of the assizes, where both they and my young brother
were bound to give in evidence against our father-in-law, to whom
we shewed more mercy than he did to us, whom our spoil would not
content, but he thirsted also our blood. In his arraignment Sir John
Popham, then Lord Chief Justice of England and Chief Judge of that
circuit, shewed such true justice (notwithstanding great means was
made for him, not only by his friends, but by the clergy of that
country), that all his cruelty and wicked proceedings was laid open
and he, convict of manslaughter by the jury, was committed to prison
to sue for the benefit of the Queen's pardon,[218] from whence being
shortly freed, he, by God's just revenging hand, lived but a short
time after.
From the assizes at Bury I sent my brother and my two sisters home to
my wife at Limehouse, being no small charge to me, being but newly
married and having little means but my hands to bring in anything,
yet I refused not to do the duty of a brother to them to the utmost
of my power; the eldest of my sisters, called Elizabeth, by means of
friends I placed in London with a gentlewoman of good fashion, where
she continued not long, but came home sick and died at my house as
we doubted of the plague. My youngest sister sickened also shortly
after, but it proved the small pox.
In all these extremities I had little help from my brothers, who
were bound in conscience to have had some care of them, the small
portions they had being in the hands of my eldest brother Joseph, yet
no relief came from him towards their maintenance or bringing up; but
being but half brothers and sisters they thought them less bound to
do them good and therefore left all the burden upon me, worst able of
all to bear it.
My youngest sister Mary, recovering her sickness, continued with me
in my house contenting herself with such breeding as I could give
her; from whence she never removed till she was married from me.
My young brother Peter, about the end of November, I placed with a
worshipful gentleman, Doctor Hone,[219] in the Arches,[220] as one of
his clerks, where he might have lived well if he would have stayed
with him.
In December this year, 1599, I began a small model, which being
perfected and very exquisitely set out and rigged, I presented it to
my good friend Mr. John Trevor, who very kindly accepted the same of
me.
In the beginning of this year, I, having no employment, determined
with myself to have bought some part of a castle carvel[221] and to
have gone in her myself; whereby I hoped (by God's blessing) to have
gotten an honest and convenient maintenance, and to that end I began
to follow one John Goodwin of London, professor of the mathematics,
with whom I spent three days in a week in practice, and so was
purposed to have continued the whole year till the spring following;
but God, who in his secret counsel had otherwise decreed of me,
altered all my determinations, for upon the 25th day of June I was
sent for to the Court, lying then at Greenwich, by my honourable lord
and master the Lord High Admiral who, after some speeches expressing
both his love and honourable care of me, his lordship concluded to
send me down to Chatham, where I was to succeed in the place of one
John Holding, a shipwright that was keeper of the plank yard timber
and other provisions (upon some displeasure turned out of all), the
means whereof being but small, as 18_d._ per diem and 6_l._ per annum
fee for myself, and allowance for one servant at 16_d._ per diem.
I was very unwilling to undertake so mean a place, by the which I was
neither sure of competent maintenance nor of any reputation, but that
I was encouraged by the persuasions of my ever honourable lord, who
comforted me with promises of better preferment to the utmost of his
power; whereupon I being contented to accept his lordship's offer,
I was, the 27th of the same month of June, placed at Chatham by Sir
Henry Palmer, then Comptroller, Mr. John Trevor, Surveyor, and Mr.
Peter Buck, Clerk of the Ships.
At this time there was grown very high terms of unkindness between my
brother Joseph and me about my poor sisters and brother, because he
did not only deny to be any ways contributory to their maintenance
but also made the neighbours believe that they were brought up at his
charge in my house, because he would not be troubled with them, when
God knoweth he never disbursed halfpenny to their bringing up, nor
cared what became of them.
Now upon this occasion of my placing at Chatham, we were reconciled
and ever after lived together as loving brethren. It also happened
that Sir Fulke Greville, then Treasurer, continuing his spleen
against me for Mr. Trevor's sake, opposed me all he could, which
after turned me to much trouble.
About the time of my coming to Chatham, Mr. Barker, the lord of
the Manor, was removed to a house he had bought at Boley Hill[222]
by Rochester, by reason whereof his Manor House wherein he formerly
dwelt at Chatham was void, the which house by means of my brother
Joseph's encouragement I ventured upon and took a lease for
twenty-one years, paying 25_l._ income, the which lease was sealed
unto me the 17th day of October, 1600.
The 16th day of June in this year my youngest brother Peter, having,
against all the consent of his friends and without their knowledge,
forsaken his worshipful master Doctor Hone's service and betaken
himself to disordered courses, sickened at London at the sign of the
Dolphin in Water Lane, and the 21st day after deceased of the small
pox before I knew he was sick, whose charge both of his sickness
and funeral I was at, and saw him seemly interred, accompanied with
a good company of my friends, in Barking churchyard[223] in Tower
Street, the 23rd of the same month of June 1600.
The 24th October, having bestowed all my poor stock upon the lease of
my house and the furnishing of the same in some convenient manner,
I shipped the same in [an] hoy of Rainham[224] and so removed to
Chatham, myself going down in the hoy; where I missed a great danger,
for at the west end of the Nore about 3 of the clock in the morning,
25th day, we were like to be surprised by a picking Dunkirk[225] full
of men who, being at our passing by (although it was very dark) at an
anchor, suddenly weighed and gave us chase, and had boarded us had
not God prevented him by our bearing up, the wind being at east; and
running ourselves on shore within the Swatch,[226] the next day we
got safe as high as Gillingham.
My dwelling house at Limehouse I passed away with a great deal of
loss, both of income, rent and wainscotting to the value of 50_l._,
putting it over at 10_l._ per annum, when I was bound by lease to pay
11_l._ Yet was I glad to be rid of it upon any condition.
Presently after Christyde[227] my wife, being great with child, fell
sick at Chatham and grew so weak that I was forced, about the 10th of
March following, to remove her, not without great hazard, to London,
and from there to her father's house at Highwood Hill in Middlesex,
where the 23rd day of March after, thanks be given to God, she was
delivered of her first born son, John Pett; from whence she returned
to Chatham in safety some two months after.
Much about this time I was made an assistant to the Master
Shipwrights at Chatham, in the room of Thomas Bodman. In this year
the first business I undertook was the repairing of the Lion's Whelp
hauled up at the storehouse end at Chatham.
In the year 1602 I also new built the Moon, hauled up in the same
place, enlarging her both in length and breadth, and this year also,
I, with Mr. Pickasee, undertook the victualling of the shipwrights
and caulkers at Chatham, which we continued only two months, to our
great loss; which we could never get recompensed by reason Mr. Fulke
Greville continued my heavy enemy, and was content to receive and
countenance informations against me, because he could not win me to
such conditions as he laboured me in, both against my good friend
Sir John Trevor (who then lay very dangerously sick at Plymouth)
and against many others serving with me at Chatham. The principal
informer and stirrer in this business against me was one George
Collins, sometimes carpenter of the Foresight, a very stubborn and
malicious fellow, who by Mr. Greville's countenance was suffered to
sue me at the common law upon an action of trespass for striking him
with a little rod upon the shoulder in the Queen's yard at Chatham,
upon a cause of mutiny in the time of victualling; and so little
relief had I against him, notwithstanding my Lord Admiral's favour,
that I was forced to compound with him and gave him 20 nobles[228]
ready money for satisfaction. Thus it pleased God to exercise me with
continual trouble and hindrances in the beginning of my service.
In November this present year, 1602, Mr. Greville, having undertaken
the preparation of a Fleet with her Majesty, to be ready fitted to
sea by a set time, was contented (upon my promise to him to procure
the said Fleet to be fitted in six weeks) to receive me to his
favour, which promise I accordingly (by God's gracious assistance)
fully accomplished; by which means I had gained his love, favour and
good opinion, had there not happened a sudden alteration by the death
of her Majesty which presently followed.
The 18th day of March 1603,[229] my wife was delivered of her second
son, Henry, at my house at Chatham.
The 24th day of the same month, her Majesty of sacred memory deceased
at Richmond.
The same day his Majesty, whom God grant long to reign, was
proclaimed at Westminster, London, and other places, and the next
day, being Friday and market day, at Rochester.
This year happened the great plague throughout England, but