Business Not as Usual • 173The navy’s need for plank and masts and rope and sailcloth was unending.
Warships sailed into port for new supplies of food, drink, and clothing. Pepys
was in perpetual motion, meeting suppliers at the navy office’s new head-
quarters in Greenwich and at Albemarle’s quarters in Westminster. He was
up and down the Thames River and occasionally out to sea with high offi-
cials viewing the navy’s needs up close. He went deep into the countryside to
dine at the manor houses of business associates. He met potential contractors
everywhere: shipbuilders, timber merchants, victualers, vintners, clothiers.
Pepys’ elaborate procurement network kept functioning through August
and well into September. Although the plague spread to the docks and ship-
yards of Greenwich, Deptford, and Woolwich, goods for the navy continued
to reach their destination. Meanwhile, he pursued the Exchequer relent-
lessly, more often than not securing the tallies owed to him. Thanks to his
goldsmiths, advances on these tallies reached Pepys’ contractors. The gratui-
ties that they offered in return were frequent and considerable. Captain Tay-
lor gave him £ 120 for a coveted six-month shipbuilding contract. Pepys re-
newed a major timber concession for Sir William Warren, whose empire of
wood sources stretched from the Baltic to New England. That arrangement
brought Samuel a £ 200 gratuity.
With the plague in London at its peak, Pepys achieved his greatest finan-
cial coup. He managed to extract from the Exchequer a reimbursement of
£ 125 , 000 for the head of navy victualing—a staggering sum. Although Denis
Gauden remained in debt for the rest of the £ 474 , 000 that the Crown owed
him, the possibility of solvency lay ahead. Gratefully, Gauden pressed a note
for £ 500 into Samuel’s hands.^35
The line between public service and private profit was conveniently hazy,
and Pepys mastered the art of going to the edge of what private and public
culture considered acceptable. In his diary, he claimed that he stopped short
of accepting outright bribes in advance of contracts, but his description of
one lucrative deal suggests that he stepped over the line on that occasion.^36
Before the epidemic he had exulted in getting supplies to Tangier at a saving
for the king of £ 5 , 000 a year, justifying his own expectation of a kickback in
gifts of £ 300 “with a safe conscience [and] without the least wrong to the
king.” Neither King Charles nor Admiral Albemarle thought him rapacious,
Albemarle calling him “the right hand of the navy” and saying no one but he
was taking care of its needs.^37
At the end of April, Pepys counted his “worth” (meaning total assets)
above £ 1 , 400 , while the average English household’s annual income was £ 7.
By the end of July, with the plague’s toll climbing sharply, his wealth had