sioner as a Shipp wright lett wise men
judge."

In Pepys's patent the salary is stated to be L33 6s. 8d., but this was
only the ancient "fee out of the Exchequer," which had been attached to
the office for more than a century. Pepys's salary had been previously
fixed at L350 a-year.

Neither of the two qualifications upon which particular stress is laid
in the above Instructions was possessed by Pepys. He knew nothing about
the navy, and so little of accounts that apparently he learned the
multiplication table for the first time in July, 1661. We see from
the particulars given in the Diary how hard he worked to obtain the
knowledge required in his office, and in consequence of his assiduity
he soon became a model official. When Pepys became Clerk of the Acts
he took up his residence at the Navy Office, a large building situated
between Crutched Friars and Seething Lane, with an entrance in each of
those places. On July 4th, 1660, he went with Commissioner Pett to view
the houses, and was very pleased with them, but he feared that the more
influential officers would jockey him out of his rights. His fears were
not well grounded, and on July 18th he records the fact that he dined in
his own apartments, which were situated in the Seething Lane front.

On July 24th, 1660, Pepys was sworn in as Lord Sandwich's deputy for a
Clerkship of the Privy Seal. This office, which he did not think much
of at first, brought him "in for a time L3 a day." In June, 1660, he was
made Master of Arts by proxy, and soon afterwards he was sworn in as
a justice of the Peace for Middlesex, Essex, Kent, and Hampshire, the
counties in which the chief dockyards were situated.

Pepys's life is written large in the Diary, and it is not necessary here
to do more than catalogue the chief incidents of it in chronological
order. In February, 1661-62, he was chosen a Younger Brother of
the Trinity House, and in April, 1662, when on an official visit to
Portsmouth Dockyard, he was made a burgess of the town. In August of the
same year he was appointed one of the commissioners for the affairs of
Tangier. Soon afterwards Thomas Povy, the treasurer, got his accounts
into a muddle, and showed himself incompetent for the place, so that
Pepys replaced him as treasurer to the commission.

In March, 1663-64, the Corporation of the Royal Fishery was appointed,
with the Duke of York as governor, and thirty-two assistants, mostly
"very great persons." Throug