“I would not omit giving you the knowledge of my having at last obtained what with as much reason I might have expected a year ago, my full discharge from the bondage I have, from one villain’s practice, so long lain under.”

William Harbord, of Cadbury, co.  Somerset, second son of Sir Charles Harbord, whom he succeeded in 1682 as Surveyor.  General of the Land Revenues of the Crown, was Pepys’s most persistent enemy.  Several papers referring to Harbord’s conduct were found at Scott’s lodging after his flight, and are now preserved among the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian.  One of these was the following memorandum, which shows pretty plainly Pepys’s opinion of Harbord:—­

“That about the time of Mr. Pepys’s surrender of his employment of Secretary of the Admiralty, Capt.  Russell and myself being in discourse about Mr. Pepys, Mr. Russell delivered himself in these or other words to this purport:  That he thought it might be of advantage to both, if a good understanding were had between his brother Harbord and Mr. Pepys, asking me to propose it to Mr. Pepys, and he would to his brother, which I agreed to, and went immediately from him to Mr. Pepys, and telling him of this discourse, he gave me readily this answer in these very words:  That he knew of no service Mr. Harbord could doe him, or if he could, he should be the last man in England he would receive any from.”

[William Harbord sat as M.P. for Thetford in several parliaments.  In 1689 he was chosen on the Privy Council, and in 1690 became Vice- Treasurer for Ireland.  He was appointed Ambassador to Turkey in 1692, and died at Belgrade in July of that year.]

Besides Scott’s dishonesty in his dealings with Major Gotherson, it came out that he had cheated the States of Holland out of L7,000, in consequence of which he was hanged in effigy at the Hague in 1672.  In 1682 he fled from England to escape from the law, as he had been guilty of wilful murder by killing George Butler, a hackney coachman, and he reached Norway in safety, where he remained till 1696.  In that year some of his influential friends obtained a pardon for him from William iii., and he returned to England.

In October, 1680, Pepys attended on Charles ii. at Newmarket, and there he took down from the King’s own mouth the narrative of his Majesty’s escape from Worcester, which was first published in 1766 by Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hailes) from the Ms., which now remains in the Pepysian library both in shorthand and in longhand?  It is creditable to Charles ii. and the Duke of York that both brothers highly appreciated the abilities of Pepys, and availed themselves of his knowledge of naval affairs.