From his Papers, still extant (says Lord Braybrooke), we gather
that he never lost sight of the public good; that he spared no
pains to check the rapacity of contractors, by whom the naval
stores were then supplied; that he studied order and economy in
the dockyards, advocated the promotion of old-established
officers in the Navy; and resisted to the utmost the infamous
system of selling places, then most unblushingly practised. His
zeal and industry acquired for him the esteem of the Duke of
York, with whom, as Lord High Admiral, he had almost daily
intercourse. At the time of his entering upon this employment,
he resided in Seething-lane, Crutched Friars. He continued in
this office till 1673; and during those great events, the Plague,
the Fire of London, and the Dutch War, the care of the Navy in a
great measure rested upon Pepys alone. He behaved with calm and
deliberate courage and integrity. Nevertheless, he had the
misfortune to experience some part of the calumnies of the time
of "the Popish Plot." The Earl of Shaftesbury, the foster-father
of this most wicked delusion, showed a great desire to implicate
Pepys in a charge of Catholicism, and went so far as to spread a
report that the Clerk of the Acts had in his house an altar and a
crucifix.
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