for him. Many difficulties occurred before Pepys actually secured the
place, so that at times he was inclined to accept the offers which were
made to him to give it up. General Monk was anxious to get the office for
Mr. Turner, who was Chief Clerk in the Navy Office, but in the end
Montagu's influence secured it for Pepys. Then Thomas Barlow, who had
been appointed Clerk of the Acts in 1638, turned up, and appeared likely
to become disagreeable. Pepys bought him off with an annuity of too,
which he did not have to pay for any length of time, as Barlow died in
February, 1664-65. It is not in human nature to be greatly grieved at the
death of one to whom you have to pay an annuity, and Pepys expresses his
feelings in a very naive manner:--

"For which God knows my heart I could be as sorry as is possible for
one to be for a stranger by whose death he gets L100 per annum, he
being a worthy honest man; but when I come to consider the
providence of God by this means unexpectedly to give me L100 a year
more in my estate, I have cause to bless God, and do it from the
bottom of my heart."

This office was one of considerable importance, for not only was the
holder the secretary or registrar of the Navy Board, but he was also one
of the principal officers of the navy, and, as member of the board, of
equal rank with the other commissioners. This office Pepys held during
the whole period of the Diary, and we find him constantly fighting for his
position, as some of the other members wished to reduce his rank merely to
that of secretary. In his contention Pepys appears to have been in the
right, and a valuable MS. volume in the Pepysian library contains an
extract from the Old Instructions of about 1649, in which this very point
is argued out. The volume appears to have been made up by William Penn
the Quaker, from a collection of manuscripts on the affairs of the navy