The Autobiography of Phineas Pett
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'