"I suppose it is, but one gets in the way of expecting to hear nothing from business men except queries about the use of the Navy, and complaints about its cost."

66

Don't you believe it. We pull brass off the foreigner because we've got a fleet. D'you think the foreigner doesn't know it? He knows it as well as we do. The Navy's a business asset, and it's money in our pockets; we know that up here, whatever they think i' South."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it. I'll mention it to the Cabinet next time I breakfast with 'em. But you've run me dry over Yorkshire. Oh no! I forgot -you're all rather like schoolboys and you're all mischievous. And you drink and smoke all night, and then go out and walk donkeys' miles over the moors all day and sweat it out again. You must have constitutions like steel, and you keep in training on gallons of beer and tons of exercise."

where you don't see many about now. He fingered it and looked at it, and I was going to move on, when he took my arm and said, 'Ye're right welcome, mister, to carryin' yer bag, an' there's no need to be overpayin' for it. It's no worth more'n a bob, and I'll get ye change.' He did, too, and shook hands when he said good night. He'll never make a fortune in tips, but he'll keep his self-respect, that lad."

"Aye, he's keeper's son, that lad. He's been well raised. But what you're discovering up here, sailor, isn't anything new. It's just that there's no Celtic or Mediterranean blood in this district. We're not a mixed breed here."

What are you, then? Bates chuckled. "Damned if I know. I don't think the Romans interfered here much. There's no sign of Italian breeding, anyway; but, then, the Romans were pretty mixed up themselves by the time they got here. I don't think the modern Italian can be much like them. The gipsies in this country don't breed outside their clan, and that leaves Danes and Northmen generally to account for us, with a chance of the original inhabitants mixing in."

Dicky was pricking his ears; he wanted to hear this curious company talk. They all, all, whether they came from palatial offices or from stableyards, seemed to take not only a great interest in matters which are usually considered rather heavy reading, but were usually able to bring out some startlingly fresh point of view. Bates and Chapman argued awhile over Danes, Norsemen, and Saxons, and then Hanlan suddenly broke in.

"Eh, Clem-ah'm thinkin' ye'er reet aboot they Romans. They weren't Italians at arl. See, now; wheer d'ye see Italians wi'oot black hair? Nowheer. Well, now;

big men wi' fair or red or brown hair, wi' faces like you or me, likely. What race to-day, now, were t'Romans like? I tell ye their roads an' army an' works were just German, an' they had t'brains o' Germans. Not by breedin', mind ye, but by natur'. Ah say, t'Germans and t'Romans came fra' same stock a while back."

"And that's a fact, but you'll have to ask Adam and Eve about it. Come nearer home, man. Now you're a Scandinavian yourself. . . ."

The argument spread, and began to travel in a circle. Chapman nudged Dicky and got up.

t'statues o' Roman consuls and suchlike-curly beards an' curly hair. Ef you'd to put one o' they statues in colour you'd only mak' it reet one way. Red-like a Hielander. Ah'm thinkin' the old Romans were

Bed, chaps," he said. "We're both catching t'early train an' you aren't." Through a volley of expostulation and derisive taunts on their inability to stand the pressure of late conviviality, the two escaped upstairs.

THE 'Diary'

But perhaps its reputation as a record of manners and customs has a little overshadowed the interest of some scattered passages that strike a deeper note. Yet surely never, before or since, has a public servant revealed his mind so completely, or given so simple an account of the proceedings in his office, and of the private views and motives of himself and his colleagues.

Let us glance for a moment at the man, and at the setting in which he lived. He was the son of a retired tailor, and his brother was carrying on the business. He was also a second cousin of his friend and patron, the Earl of Sandwich. He had been educated at St Paul's School and at Cambridge. He was twenty-seven years old when, in 1660, he began his diary, a married man with a small post but no private means, only a career opening before him. In that year he was made "Clerk of the Acts of the Navy," an appointment which he received from the new Lord High Admiral, the Duke of York. Acting with him were Commissioners, a Treasurer, a Surveyor, and a Comptroller, all of them his superiors in age and standing. They had charge of all civil business connected with the Navy, but were

Seething Lane, and adjoining it were two or more official residences, of which Pepys had one, and also a garden and a yard.

Their personal connection with the Duke of York, who was the King's brother and heir, while it strengthened the position of the Navy Board, involved it more or less in the discordant political atmosphere of the Court and Parliament. England was then in a state of transition with regard to the principles and practices of government. She was ahead of the other countries of Europe, and was working out, half unconsciously, a fundamental change, first in the point of view as between governors and governed, and then in practical details of government. What made those days so difficult, and often and often so hopeless and miserable for any honest man who had to do with public business, was the shapelessness and uncertainty in the organisation of the public services. Old methods were inadequate, and had not been recast. poor Mr Pepys repeatedly says, everything was being mismanaged, and everybody expected that the country would fall to pieces. Fanaticism, religious or political, had had its fling, and been rudely disillusioned, but honest convictions remained

As

and were being tested and balanced.

Pepys never thought of himself as a public servant, but as the servant of the King. It was his business to see that the King was not cheated, and that his honour was upheld. It was difficult, because the King would not "play the game," would not identify himself with anything that was done. He took warning from the fate of his father, kept his principles, if he had any, to himself, except on very rare occasions, and refused to be drawn into any conflict with anybody, by the simple expedient of good-natured trifling. No one expected the Parliament to rule the country or take responsibility for the details of public service, and it had not the machinery to do it. Nominally it held the purse-strings, but the King's party was expected to have a voice in deciding by what taxes the sum voted was to be raised. Ministers were appointed by the King. "Government never borrowed money. The older plan of the King borrowing money from his subjects, collectively or individually, still obtained. His servants did it in his name, but for large sums he was expected to do it himself. It was the only way to get cash while the taxes were being voted and raised. Sometimes it was refused, which was a horrid disgrace, an unheard-of slight to the Crown, and a grievous trouble to the officials concerned. Questions

of peace or war, and foreign policy generally, were altogether in the hands of the King, but public opinion mattered. There again, everything was vague. Public opinion had no clear means of expressing itself till it exploded in riots or rebellion, or, on the other hand, refused to explode when invited to do so. The people had fallen back on the time-honoured institution of Royalty, more elastic than any newly-hatched system of government, and therefore better for a transitional stage of national development; but "Royal Prerogative" was still a phrase that was like a red rag to a bull for many thoughtful Englishmen.

Meanwhile, men of action consoled themselves by satisfying their personal desires and instincts. Traders made money, intellectuals gave free vent to their curiosity, and they all flung themselves with enormous zest into that joie de vivre which has hall-marked the Restoration period. Like a true sound Englishman, Pepys did the best he could for his office, often feeling "quite mad over the difficulties of his position and the errors of his fellow-officials; and then put it all out of his head, and went off after his own devices, till he found occasion to do another stroke of work.

Foreign countries were not slow to take advantage of this disorganisation in England. On 6th September 1664 Pepys notes how the Duke of York, his chief, "did receive the Dutch

Embassador the other day, by telling him that, whereas they think us in jest, he did not doubt to live to see them as fearful of provoking the English, under the government of a King, as he remembers them to have been under that of a Coquin."

But the lack of organisation told both ways. There was easier scope for personal enterprise. If any competent man wanted to do anything, especially abroad, he gained the confidence of a few friends, and, in person or by proxy, they pestered the sovereign till they got a charter-a parchment authorising a given person to go in the King's name to a portion of the world, vaguely specified, and do what he could there. Then they acquired a ship or two, and went. The Dutch claimed to have bought the charter of the settlement that is now New York, as one might buy a title-deed, and they had renamed the place the New Netherlands. We read in Pepys diary, 29th September 1664: "Fresh news come of our beating the Dutch quite out of their castles almost, Guinny, which will make them quite mad here at home, sure. Nay, they say that we have beat them out of the New Netherlands, too; so that we have been doing them mischief for a great while in several parts of the world, without public knowledge or reason." For we were not at war with Holland! But he notes, on VOL. COX.-NO. MCCLXXIV.

at

In November news came of the capture of the Dutch Bordeaux fleet, eighteen or twenty merchantmen, escorted by two men-of-war. The seizing of merchantmen was not, technically, an act of war. They were civilians, playing lightheartedly, between themselves, at catch-who-catch-can; but ships of war were the property of the State, and it seemed that the taking of them must necessarily lead to a war. Touches such as this show the mediæval mediæval attitude of mind that was passing, but in practice still existed. The State was not the People, though in thought and emotion, and even in words, the two terms often stood for the same ideal. Incidentally, we learn that this taking of the Bordeaux fleet