number of depositions and
information as to his dishonest proceedings in New England, Long Island,
Barbadoes, France, Holland, and England, and these papers are preserved
among the Rawlinson Manuscripts in the Bodleian. Scott had his revenge,
and accused Pepys of betraying the Navy by sending secret particulars
to the French Government, and of a design to dethrone the king and
extirpate the Protestant religion. Pepys and Sir Anthony Deane were
committed to the Tower under the Speaker's warrant on May 22nd, 1679,
and Pepys's place at the Admiralty was filled by the appointment of
Thomas Hayter. When the two prisoners were brought to the bar of the
King's Bench on the 2nd of June, the Attorney-General refused bail, but
subsequently they were allowed to find security for L30,000.
Pepys was put to great expense in collecting evidence against Scott and
obtaining witnesses to clear himself of the charges brought against
him. He employed his brother-in-law, Balthasar St. Michel, to
collect evidence in France, as he himself explains in a letter to the
Commissioners of the Navy:--
"His Majesty of his gracious regard to me, and the justification of
my innocence, was then pleased at my humble request to dispence with
my said brother goeing (with ye shippe about that time designed for
Tangier) and to give leave to his goeing into France (the scene of
ye villannys then in practice against me), he being the only person
whom (from his relation to me, together with his knowledge in the
place and language, his knowne dilligence and particular affection
towards mee) I could at that tyme and in soe greate a cause pitch
on, for committing the care of this affaire of detecting the
practice of my enemies there."
In the end Scott refused to acknowledge to the truth of his original
deposition, and the prisoners were relieved from their bail on February
12th, 1679-80. John James, a butler previously in Pepys's service,
confessed on his deathbed in 1680 that he had trumped up the whole story
relating to his former master's change of religion at the instigation of
Mr. William Harbord, M.P. for Thetford.
Pepys wrote on July 1st, 1680, to Mrs. Skinner:
"I would not omit giving you the knowledge of my having at last
obtained what with as much reason I might have expected a year ago,
my full discharge from the bondage I have, from one villain's
practice, so long lain und
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