The last of the great officers forming the Board was the Clerk of the Navy or Clerk of the Acts. This official answered to the permanent Under Secretary of our time. He was, in fact, the head of the secretariat, or purely office work, and it was his duty to attend all meetings of the Board and to keep a record of all transactions. It appears from the "Oeconomy of the Navy" that he was hampered by the obligation to control what were called "petty emptions," by which were probably meant the purchase of stationery, furniture, etc., which were required for the office. But it was added, that as so much more of this work has to be done now than was formerly the case, he may leave it to be done by subordinates, whom, however, he was expected to control. It was also his duty to see that a "plurality of persons was proposed for the supply of all wants." The modern statement of this obligation would be that he was bound to take care that the surveyor and other members of the Board did not get into the habit of dealing with one merchant only, with whom they might have a corrupt understanding. Beneath these great officials there were a number of lesser and subordinate officers who did not form a part of the Navy Board. The first of these was the Storekeeper, whose function it was to receive all stores, stow them away, and issue them out again on a warrant of two or more principal officers. He was to examine all bills for stores delivered; to refuse what was unfit; to receive no stores without a copy of the contract; to keep accounts; to do all work by himself, and not, unless in case of necessity, by his servants. These instructions applied to what were called in-stores--that is to say, perishable things kept in warehouses. They held good, however, for all out-stores--that is to say, wood, metal, etc., which lay in the open air. He was minutely directed as to the tests to be applied to timber, and was to take care that when ships were broken up, all the parts worth keeping were kept. The Clerk of the Cheque was in fact a time-clerk. It was his business to check the number of men employed, and the time they worked. He was to take surprise-musters whenever he pleased, and to hold an ordinary muster once a month. He was to watch the porter and the storekeeper. The abuses which he was especially instructed to prevent are still familiar to all who have to superintend a great shop or workyard, "such as men coming late to work, departing from work before the bell rings, tippling in alehouses or the porter's taphouse, carriaging away of timber instead of chips, etc." Chips, be it observed, came to be the slang name for all kinds of pilfering from the dockyards. It was a well-established joke to say that the handsome houses in their neighbourhood were all built out of chips. The clerk of the cheque was bound to draw up and send to the treasurer the muster-books of ships newly commissioned.