Those officers with whom Pepys came most in contact were Sir George Carteret, the Treasurer; Sir Robert Slingsby and Sir John Minnes, successive Comptrollers; Sir William Batten and Colonel Thomas Middleton, successive Surveyors; and Sir William Penn and Lord Viscount Brouncker, additional Commissioners.
Pepys did not hold Carteret in much esteem, and we read constant disparaging remarks respecting him, such as that on one occasion he wanted to know what the four letters S. P. Q. R. meant, “which ignorance is not to be borne in a Privy Counsellor,”[234] but after Sir George’s son had married a daughter of Lord Sandwich, and he had thus become a near connection of Pepys’s family, we read of “his pleasant humour,” and are told that he is “a most honest man.” Sir Robert Slingsby died in 1661, and therefore does not occupy a very prominent position in the “Diary,” but Pepys grieved for his loss.
Sir John Minnes was better known as a wit than as a sailor, and it was he who taught Pepys to appreciate Chaucer. He does not, however, come off very handsomely in the “Diary.” Captain Holmes called him “the veriest knave and rogue and coward in the world,”[235] and Sir William Coventry likened him to a lapwing, who was always in a flutter to keep others from the nest.[236] Pepys himself, after a few quarrels, hints pretty plainly that he was an old coxcomb, a mere jester or ballad-monger, and quite unfit for business.
We are told of Sir William Batten’s corruption and underhand dealing,[237] of his knavery,[238] and of his inconsequent action in objecting to lighthouses generally, and then proposing one for Harwich;[239] but Pepys’s two chief enemies were Sir William Penn and Lord Brouncker.
Sir William Penn and Pepys were much thrown together, and were alternately very friendly and very jealous of each other. When Pepys first associated with Penn, he found him sociable but cunning, and ever after the pages of the “Diary” are filled with vituperation respecting this successful admiral. Considering the eminent position of William Penn the son, as a leader among the Quakers, it is curious to note that before the Restoration, and when Monk was coming from the North, it was reported that Penn, the father, had turned Quaker.[240] In May, 1660, Charles II. wrote to Monk: “I have so good an opinion of General Penn, that if you had not recommended him to me I would have taken care of all his interests;”[241] and we cannot doubt that he possessed some eminent qualities of which we learn nothing in the “Diary.”