from Spain and as one of the three commissioners of the Navy, laid the
foundation for that British fleet which has ever since played so large
a part in the history of the world. He was the practical man of the
commission, from whom James, Duke of York, afterwards, and very briefly
King, took most of his advice. He reformed the higgledy-piggledy naval
tactics of the time and taught the commanders to attack the enemy in line,
the most important change in the sea annals of his country. Knighted in
1665 for service against the Dutch he failed of the peerage because of the
public prejudice against his son, which deterred the King from giving him
an honor as high as he deserved. As Clerk of the Acts, Pepys was much in
contact with him socially and officially. The famous diary teems with
references, many of them convivial, others most unkind. He was faithful to
the commonwealth as long as it was faithful to itself. Perceiving that it
could not hold together after the death of Cromwell he joined with George
Monk in bringing about the restoration of the Stuarts,

Against this background of paternal distinction, the young reformer shone
invidiously and brought his father great chagrin by his association with
carpenters and weavers in their non-conformist agitations. He preached in
poor halls and in the streets. The newspaper, not having arrived, he took
to pamphleteering to spread his doctrines. This activity reached a crisis
in 1669. Writing in his diary under date of February 12, 1669, Pepys says:
"...Felling hath got me W. Pen's book against the Trinity. I got my wife
to read it to me; and I find it so well writ as, I think, it is too good
for him ever to have writ it, and it is a serious sort of book not fit for
everybody to read."

The extended title of this work was "The Sandy Foundation Shaken--or those
...Doctrines of one God subsisting in three distinct and separate persons;
the impossibility of God's pardoning persons by an imputative refuted from