When Montagu and Pepys had both returned to London, the former told the latter that he had obtained the promise of the office of Clerk of the Acts for him.  Many difficulties occurred before Pepys actually secured the place, so that at times he was inclined to accept the offers which were made to him to give it up.  General Monk was anxious to get the office for Mr. Turner, who was Chief Clerk in the Navy Office, but in the end Montagu’s influence secured it for Pepys.  Then Thomas Barlow, who had been appointed Clerk of the Acts in 1638, turned up, and appeared likely to become disagreeable.  Pepys bought him off with an annuity of too, which he did not have to pay for any length of time, as Barlow died in February, 1664-65.  It is not in human nature to be greatly grieved at the death of one to whom you have to pay an annuity, and Pepys expresses his feelings in a very naive manner:—­

“For which God knows my heart I could be as sorry as is possible for one to be for a stranger by whose death he gets L100 per annum, he being a worthy honest man; but when I come to consider the providence of God by this means unexpectedly to give me L100 a year more in my estate, I have cause to bless God, and do it from the bottom of my heart.”

This office was one of considerable importance, for not only was the holder the secretary or registrar of the Navy Board, but he was also one of the principal officers of the navy, and, as member of the board, of equal rank with the other commissioners.  This office Pepys held during the whole period of the Diary, and we find him constantly fighting for his position, as some of the other members wished to reduce his rank merely to that of secretary.  In his contention Pepys appears to have been in the right, and a valuable Ms. volume in the Pepysian library contains an extract from the Old Instructions of about 1649, in which this very point is argued out.  The volume appears to have been made up by William Penn the Quaker, from a collection of manuscripts on the affairs of the navy found in his father’s, “Sir William Penn’s closet.”  It was presented to Charles ii., with a dedication ending thus:—­

     “I hope enough to justifie soe much freedome with a Prince that is
     so easie to excuse things well intended as this is
                         “By
                              “Great Prince,
                                   “Thy faithfull subject,
                                        “Wm. Penn”

     “London, the 22 of the Mo. called June, 1680.”

It does not appear how the volume came into Pepys’s possession.  It may have been given him by the king, or he may have taken it as a perquisite of his office.  The book has an index, which was evidently added by Pepys; in this are these entries, which show his appreciation of the contents of the Ms.:—­

“Clerk of the Acts,
his duty,
his necessity and usefulness.”