or,
surveyor; Sir Henry Palmer, controller; Sir Thomas Bluther, victualler;
and many others.

While the commission was still sitting and holding what Pett calls
their "malicious proceedings," he was able to lay the keel of his new
great ship upon the stocks in the dock at Woolwich on the 20th of
October, 1608. He had a clear conscience, for his hands were clean.
He went on vigorously with his work, though he knew that the
inquisition against him was at its full height. His enemies reported
that he was "no artist, and that he was altogether insufficient to
perform such a service" as that of building his great ship.
Nevertheless, he persevered, believing in the goodness of his cause.
Eventually, he was enabled to turn the tables upon his accusers, and to
completely justify himself in all his transactions with the king, the
Lord Admiral, and the public officers, who were privy to all his
transactions. Indeed, the result of the enquiry was not only to cause
a great trouble and expense to all the persons accused, but, as Pett
says in his Memoir, "the Government itself of that royal office was so
shaken and disjoined as brought almost ruin upon the whole Navy, and a
far greater charge to his Majesty in his yearly expense than ever was
known before."[24]

In the midst of his troubles and anxieties, Pett was unexpectedly
cheered with the presence of his "Master" Prince Henry, who specially
travelled out of his way from Essex to visit him at Woolwich, to see
with his own eyes what progress he was making with the great ship.
After viewing the dry dock, which had been constructed by Pett, and was
one of the first, if not the very first in England,--his Highness
partook of a banquet which the shipbuilder had hastily prepared for him
in his temporary lodgings.

One of the circumstances which troubled Pett so much at this time, was
the strenuous opposition of the other shipbuilders to his plans of the
great ship. There never had been such a frightful innovation. The
model was all wrong. The lines were detestable. The man who planned
the whole thing was a fool, a "cozener" of the king, and the ship,
suppose it to be made, was "unfit for any other use but a dung-boat!"
This attack upon his professional character weighed very heavily upon
his mind.

He determined to put his case in a staightforward manner before the
Lord High Admiral. He set down in writing in the briefest manner
everything that he had done, and the plots t