104 CHARLES II. 



attention to the fact that in another point Mr. King was 

 defrauding the company, since upon the collection of a cer- 

 tain sum of £115, he was awarding himself the dispropor- 

 tionate amount of £47, " which," he remarks, " is after 

 the rate of 8s. per pound and more." Finally, in order 

 that the whole matter of the collection might be placed 

 upon a business footing, Pepys suggested that both the 

 Earl of Pembroke and Mr. King should be compelled to give 

 in an exact return of the money received by them, and this 

 particularly with regard to the amounts collected in London, 

 since no account had been rendered of a great part of the 

 contributions from the metropoHs." ^ Pepys seems to have 

 been much gratified by the reception of his report on this 

 occasion. In his Diary for October 25th, 1664, he writes, 

 " To the Committee of the Fishery, and there did make my 

 report of the late pubHc collections for the Fishery, much to 

 the satisfaction of the Committee, and I think much to my 

 reputation, for good notice was taken of it and much it was 

 commended." Again on November 1st of the same year his 

 entry reads, " My report in the business of the collections is 

 mightily commended and will get me some reputation, and 

 indeed is the only thing looks like a thing well done since 

 we sat." 



The Society, however, was too much perturbed by the 

 outbreak of war with Holland to have any mind to inquire 

 into the manner in which its affairs had been conducted. 

 The Dutch admiral, De Ruyter, immediately upon the 

 declaration of war in 1664, had acted with his customary 

 energy, his first efforts being directed against the Enghsh 

 possessions on the West Coast of Africa, where he was 

 uniformly successful. The year thus closed with but a 

 gloomy outlook for the Enghsh merchants and particularly 

 for those of them who were connected with the fishing industry, 

 since they knew that whether the Enghsh were ultimately 



1 Cal. S.P. Dotn. Car. II., vol. 103, No. 130. 



