It is indisputable, even on Pepys' own showing, that peculation, bribery, and corruption were the causes of the neglect from which the fleet had suffered. The Naval Commissioners, in order to make their own profit, cheated and starved the sailors; they falsified the quantities of food that they sent, and what they delivered was bad. Rupert had just cause for his wrath, and he did not hesitate to express it. Five days after the return of the fleet, Pepys and his colleagues were called upon to answer for their conduct. They endeavoured very ingeniously to defend themselves by transferring the blame to the Prince. Thus Pepys describes the interview. "Anon we were called into the green room, where were the King, Duke of York, Prince Rupert, Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, Duke of Albemarle, { 318} and Sirs G. Carteret, W. Coventry, Morrice. Nobody beginning, I did, and made, as I thought, a good speech, laying open the ill state of the Navy, by the greatness of the debt, greatness of the work to do against next year, the time and materials it would take, and our own incapacity through a total want of money. I had no sooner done, but Prince Rupert rose up in a great heat, and told the King that, whatever the gentleman said, he had brought home his fleet in as good a condition as ever any fleet was brought home; that twenty boats would be as many as the fleet would want, and that all the anchors and cables left in the storm might be taken up again... I therefore did only answer that I was sorry for His Highness's offence, but what I said was the report I had received. He muttered and repeated what he had said, and, after a long silence, no one, not so much as the Duke of Albemarle, seconding the Prince, we withdrew. I was not a little troubled at this passage, and the more, when speaking with Jack Fenn about it, he told me that the Prince will now be asking who this Pepys is, and will find him to be a creature of My lord Sandwich, and that this was therefore done only to disparage him."[51]
In consequence of this dispute, Batten was sent down to view the fleet. He had been Rupert's enemy of old, and he now made a very unfavourable report, which he intended to present to the Duke of York. To this end he obtained an audience, but great was his dismay when he found Rupert in the company of his cousin. "It was pretty to see," says Pepys, with malicious glee, "how, when he found the Prince there, he did not speak out one word, though the meeting was of his asking, and for nothing else. And when I asked him, he told me that he knew the Prince too well to anger him, and that he was afraid to do it."[52]