242 
MINUTES OE PKOCEEDINGS OF 
man, yet, God forgive me! I did doubt he might knock me on the head 
behind with his dub. But I got safe home.” 
On the 10 th June, 1667, the Dutch admiral De Buy ter, made his raid 
up the river Medway, and struck the blow at England's naval prestige which, 
exciting the whole nation, seems—as was natural—to have been most 
keenly felt by the then Secretary to the Admiralty. Eor Mr Pepys thus 
writes, a few days later, concerning the Woolwich defences,* “ 14th June, 
1667. At night come home Sir W. Batten and W. Pen, who only can tell 
me that they have placed guns at Woolwich and Deptford and sunk some 
ships below Woolwich and Blackewall, and are in hopes that they will stop 
the enemy's coming up.'' And, “23rd June, 1667 (Lord's day). To 
Woolwich, and there called on Mr Bodham; and he and I to see the 
batterys newly raised; which indeed are good works to command the Biver 
below the ships that are sunk, but not above them. It is a sad sight to 
see so many good ships there sunk in the Biver, while we would be thought 
to be masters of the sea.'' A letter from Sir William Penn to Mr Pepys, 
dated the 15th June, 1667, and now deposited in the Becord Office, reminds 
him of “ the six ships to be sunk at Woolwich, and the eight hoys with 
four guns each, and, if it were possible, 4000 tons at least of stones, to be 
cast into the ships to be sunk.” 
The ships thus mentioned were sunk, according to tradition, at the head 
of Gallion's Beach, almost immediately opposite the site of the present 
T pier in the Boyal Arsenal. Batteries were also constructed 17 miles 
lower down the river; and Mr Pepys, on the 1st July, 1667, “took coach, 
and, being very sleepy, drowsed most part of the way to Gravesend, and 
there 'light, and down to the new batterys, which are like to be very 
fine.” 
A letter from James Thruston to Yiscount Conway, dated the 29th June, 
1667, says, “I am almost ashamed to say that Woolwich is now in a very 
good posture of defence (Sir Edward Spragg being vice admiral of the 
squadron there) and that there is such a breach in the walls of our nation 
that we are forced to make inner works. Never was England brought to 
such an extremity, never so benumbed with such a lethargjq that, seeing 
our enemies so watchful, so providing, and at last so provided, we still were 
so resolutely blind as not to endeavour the prevention of those miseries 
which almost every eye could have easily foreseen.” 
Near the site of the present Laboratory pattern room in the Boyal Arsenal 
there formerly stood a tall brick building owned, according to tradition, by 
Prince Bupert, and named after him “ Prince Bupert's Tower.” A wooden 
model of this building (the gift of C. G. Landmann, Esq.) may be still seen 
in the Museum of the Boyal United Service Institution, Whitehall Yard, 
and the accompanying lithograph, from a drawing in the B.A. Institution, 
clearly shews its position. In was pulled down in August, 1786. That 
such a building, with such a name, existed in—and gave a name to 
—the Tower Place, is probable enough. That it was occupied per¬ 
manently, as a residence, by Prince Bupert of Bavaria, is extremely 
doubtful; since no mention of such a circumstance is made by any writers 
* For particulars about the erection of these batteries, see p. 282. 
