SOURCE: Introduction to Samuel Pepys and the Second Dutch War: Pepys's Navy White Book and Brooke House Papers, edited by Robert Latham, Scolar Press, 1995, pp. xvii-xxxix.

In the following essay, Latham reviews Pepys's records, written while he was a clerk of the Navy Board, documenting English military reform after the Dutch War of 1665-67.

I the Navy White Book1

In his Diary for 7 Apr. 1664, immediately after observing that war against the Dutch seemed imminent, Pepys wrote: ‘Vexed to see how Sir W. Batten ordered things this afternoon (vide my office-book; for about this time I have begun, my notions and informations increasing now greatly every day, to enter all occurrences extraordinary in a book by themselfs).’ There was already in existence an office memorandum book (now in the Public Record Office), begun by Pepys and his clerks in July 1660 on his appointment as Clerk of the Acts which...