And Rupert did behave himself well. No toil proved too arduous for him, no undertaking too dangerous. Indeed, the labours involved in his task were so great and so many that it seems scarcely credible that they could be performed by one man. He became a merchant; he discussed the prices of sugar, indigo, tobacco, and other commodities, and personally conducted the sale of his prizes. He attended to his own commissariat; dispensing with the cheating commissioners, as "unuseful evils."[14] We find him gravely considering the quality of "pickled meat," or lamenting that peas and groats are both too dear to buy.[15] "Concerning the pork, he tells me he doth not think there can be so great a quantity provided suddenly," says a correspondent. "He hath not yet provided any shirts nor apparel for the men."[16] He was his own recruiting officer, and went from port to port in Ireland, persuading men to join his fleet. The conduct of each man was his personal concern; and, as in the war in England, he was overwhelmed with complaints and correspondence by his officers. One letter may serve as an example of the rest. "According to the service and duty I owe unto your Highness," writes Thomas Price, "I am enforced to certify your Highness of the dangerous and unbeseeming carriage of Robert Pett, gunner of His Majesty's ship the Revenge, {228} who, upon Saturday night last, being the tenth of January, about nine o'clock at night, being very much in drink, would have taken tobacco over a barrell of powder, (being in his cabin, which is in the gun room and a great quantity of loose powder lying round about), had he not been prevented by Captain Payton Cartwright, who was called by some of the gun room for that purpose. The gunner, being something unruly, he was forced to go up to His Highness Prince Maurice to acquaint him with it. Upon which he was committed to the guard, for fear of further danger."[17]