He held temporarily the appointment of Treasurer to the Commissioners for the Affairs of Tangier, and also that of Surveyor-General of the Victualling Department. He had been passively engaged during the Great Plague; he was actively and usefully so during the Great Fire; and when the Officers of the Navy Board were summoned to answer before Parliament for the enterprise of De Ruyter against Chatham in 1668, his bold eloquence procured an acquittal for himself and colleagues. He occupied a seat in Parliament, where he, at different times, represented Castle Rising and Harwich; and when excess of toil induced him to undertake a tour through Holland and France, he devoted much of his time to making collections respecting the affairs of the navies of those countries. Pepys was a widower, when his powerful enemies, envying the greatness achieved by a tailor’s son, twice endeavoured unsuccessfully to bring him into grievous trouble on the alleged ground of his being a Papist. The accusation did him no disservice in the eyes of Charles, who appointed him Secretary for the Affairs of the Navy; which appointment he retained from 1673 until the constitution of the Admiralty was changed in 1680. Three years after, he accompanied Lord Dartmouth on the expedition for demolishing Tangier; and shortly after his return was appointed Secretary of the Admiralty, with a salary of £500 per annum,—an appointment which he retained till the period of the accession of William and Mary, when he suffered temporary imprisonment in the Tower, and subsequent brief captivity in the Gatehouse, on the charge of being attached to the royal family of the Stuarts, and especially to the ex-King James II., at whose coronation he had served as one of the Barons of the Cinque Ports. In his dignified retirement at Clapham he led a life of some luxury and considerable usefulness. Christ’s Hospital reckons him among its benefactors, and the Royal Society among its honoured Presidents. He died in 1703, leaving behind him more books than money-bags; but yet, as he bade his heirs remember, “more than what either myself or they were born to.” He best deserves to live in our grateful memories as the renovator of the navy of England. James II. long got for this the credit that was due to the gay yet efficient secretary; but we now know that to a tailor’s son is due the merit of once more raising the naval bulwarks of Britain to be a defence for those at home, and a terror to her assailants. When the Company of Clothworkers drink “the memory of Samuel Pepys” out of the splendid cup which he conferred on that Company in honour of his father’s calling, let them never forget why that memory especially deserves to be honoured. When the elder Pepys refused to bind his son to his own vocation, he was unconsciously helping his country to achieve future naval victories. Of such a man then the profession may be proud; and we will now proceed to collect from the son’s diary some