On March 26th, 1658, he underwent a successful operation for the stone, and we find him celebrating each anniversary of this important event of his life with thanksgiving.  He went through life with little trouble on this score, but when he died at the age of seventy a nest of seven stones was found in his left kidney.

["June 10th, 1669.  I went this evening to London, to carry Mr. Pepys to my brother Richard, now exceedingly afflicted with the stone, who had been successfully cut, and carried the stone, as big as a tennis ball, to show him and encourage his resolution to go thro’ the operation.”—­Evelyn’s Diary.]

In June, 1659, Pepys accompanied Sir Edward Montage in the “Naseby,” when the Admiral of the Baltic Fleet and Algernon Sidney went to the Sound as joint commissioners.  It was then that Montage corresponded with Charles II., but he had to be very secret in his movements on account of the suspicions of Sidney.  Pepys knew nothing of what was going on, as he confesses in the Diary: 

     “I do from this raise an opinion of him, to be one of the most
     secret men in the world, which I was not so convinced of before.”

On Pepys’s return to England he obtained an appointment in the office of Mr., afterwards Sir George Downing, who was one of the Four Tellers of the Receipt of the Exchequer.  He was clerk to Downing when he commenced his diary on January 1st, 1660, and then lived in Axe Yard, close by King Street, Westminster, a place on the site of which was built Fludyer Street.  This, too, was swept away for the Government offices in 1864-65.  His salary was L50 a year.  Downing invited Pepys to accompany him to Holland, but he does not appear to have been very pressing, and a few days later in this same January he got him appointed one of the Clerks of the Council, but the recipient of the favour does not appear to have been very grateful.  A great change was now about to take place in Pepys’s fortunes, for in the following March he was made secretary to Sir Edward Montage in his expedition to bring about the Restoration of Charles II., and on the 23rd he went on board the “Swiftsure” with Montage.  On the 30th they transferred themselves to the “Naseby.”  Owing to this appointment of Pepys we have in the Diary a very full account of the daily movements of the fleet until, events having followed their natural course, Montage had the honour of bringing Charles II. to Dover, where the King was received with great rejoicing.  Several of the ships in the fleet had names which were obnoxious to Royalists, and on the 23rd May the King came on board the “Naseby” and altered there—­the “Naseby” to the “Charles,” the “Richard” to the “Royal James,” the “Speaker” to the “Mary,” the “Winsby” to the “Happy Return,” the “Wakefield” to the “Richmond,” the “Lambert” to the “Henrietta,” the “Cheriton” to the “Speedwell,” and the “Bradford” to the “Success.”  This portion of the Diary is of particular interest, and the various excursions in Holland which the Diarist made are described in a very amusing manner.