Lord Braybrooke, in his note to the entry of the 27th June, 1660, quotes Pepys’s patent, in which Fleming and Barlow’s joint patent is recited and revoked, and Pepys was appointed Clerk of the Acts at a salary of _£_33 6_s._ 8_d._ per annum. But this amount 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 _£_350 a year. Lord Braybrooke says, in a note to 9th Feb. 1664–65, that “Barlow had previously been Secretary to Algernon, Earl of Northumberland, when High Admiral;” but he was appointed Clerk of the Acts two months before the Earl became Lord High Admiral. Barlow had, however, been in his service at an earlier date, and had been appointed by the Earl Muster-Master of the Fleet under his command in 1636. (Cal. St. Pap.)
1674 Thomas Hayter and Addit. MSS. vol. 9307. John Pepys, joint.
When Pepys was promoted to be Secretary of the Admiralty, he was succeeded in the office of Clerk of the Acts by his clerk and his brother jointly.
1677 Thomas Hayter and Orders and Warrants, James Sotherne, 1676–78 (MS. in Admiralty joint. Library).
Sotherne was appointed “one of the Clerkes of yᵉ Acts of our Navy Royall,” in the place of John Pepys “lately deceased:” 12th March, 1676–77.
Hayter was promoted to be Secretary of the Admiralty when Pepys was thrown into prison.
Special temporary Commission appointed, and the principal officers suspended.
1688 James Sotherne, Pepys’s Memoir. restored.
Sotherne was made Secretary of the Admiralty in January, 1690, and it is probable that Sergison immediately succeeded him. The Letter-books of the Navy Board at Chatham show that he held the office in 1691, and held it until 1719.
1719 Tempest Holmes. Byng Collection, vol. xiii. (MS. in Admiralty Library).
COMMISSIONERS OF THE NAVY APPOINTED TO RESIDE AT CHATHAM,
_From the first establishment of that office in 1630 to the commencement of the 18th century_.
1630 Phineas Pett. Phineas Pett’s Autobiography (Addit. MS. 9298).
This interesting MS., in Pett’s own handwriting, contains full details of the life of the celebrated builder of the “Royal Sovereign,” or “Sovereign of the Seas,” from his birth in 1570 until 1637, when it breaks off abruptly. It is endorsed, in a much later handwriting: “The life of Comʳ. Pett’s father, whose place he did enjoy.” A few leaves are wanting, but their contents are supplied by a complete transcript in the Harleian MS. 6279, in which, however (as well as in another transcript in the Pepysian Library), the orthography is somewhat modernized, and the handwriting is that of the latter part of the 17th century. Extracts from a copy of the Harleian transcript are printed in “Archæologia,” vol. xii.