Thomas Pett

“ Some one must be accused by Parliament:
All our miscarriages on Pett must fall;
His name alone seems fit to answer all.
After being deprived of his office, Pett disappears from view. He married, on 8 Sept. 1632, Catherine (b. August 1617) , daughter of Edward Cole of Woodbridge, Suffolk (Register of St. Mary's, Woodbridge, by favour of Mr. Vincent B. Redstone) . ”

“ When the Royal Society was formed, in 1663, Pett was one of the original fellows, elected on 20 May, but was expelled on 18 Nov. 1675 for ‘not performing his obligation to the society.’ He was probably absorbed in other interests. He had been appointed advocate-general for Ireland, where he was knighted by the Duke of Ormonde. He was also much engaged in literary work, more or less of a polemical nature. A short tract of his, headed ‘Sir Peter Pett's Paper, 1679, about the Papists,’ is in the Public Record Office (Shaftesbury Papers, ii. 347) . His published works are: 1. ”

“ During the winter months, while the work was in progress, Pett spent the leisure of his evenings in perfecting himself in learning, especially in drawing, cyphering, and mathematics, for the purpose, as he says, of attaining the knowledge of his profession. His master, Mr. Baker, gave him every encouragement, and from his assistance, he adds, "I must acknowledge I received my greatest lights." The Lord Admiral was often present at Baker's house. Pett was importuned to set sail with the ship when finished, but he preferred remaining at home. ”

“ Another pleasant thing he said of Christopher Pett, commending him that he will not alter his moulds of his ships upon any man's advice; "as," says he, "Commissioner Taylor I fear do of his New London, that he makes it differ, in hopes of mending the Old London, built by him." "For," says he, "he finds that God hath put him into the right, and so will keep in it while he is in." "And," says the King, "I am sure it must be God put him in, for no art of his owne ever could have done it;" for it seems he cannot give a good account of what he do as an artist. ”

“ Heywood stated in 1637 that for two hundred years and upwards men of the name had been officers and architects in the royal navy (Charnock, Hist. of Marine Architecture, ii. 284) . It appears well established that Pett's father, also Peter, was settled at Harwich, probably as a shipbuilder. Pett himself was certainly in the service of the crown from an early age; he was already master-shipwright at Deptford in the reign of Edward VI, and there he continued till his death on or about 6 Sept. ”

“ Peter looked puzzled.
"What a learned man you are, Mr. T.," he said. "You seem to know something of everything, and I dare say the brandy is to the full as good as it looks."
This was decidedly a quiet sort of hint to decant some of it without further loss of time, and Todd at once complied. He filled Peter's glass to the brim, and his own more moderately; and as the golden liquor came out with a pleasant bubble from the bottle, Peter's eyes glistened, and he sniffed up the aroma of that pure champaign brandy with the utmost complaisance. ”

“ Pett, like most other people, subconsciously held the view that the ruder a person is the more efficient he must be. It is but rarely that any one is found who is not dazzled by the glamour of incivility. ”

“ On the morrow, I dragged him to an editor. The great man read, and, rising, gave Pettit his hand. That was a decoration, a wreath of bay, and a guarantee of rent.
And then old Pettit smiled slowly. I call him Gentleman Pettit now to myself. It’s a miserable name to give a man, but it sounds better than it looks in print.
“I see,” said old Pettit, as he took up his story and began tearing it into small strips. “I see the game now. You can’t write with ink, and you can’t write with your own heart’s blood, but you can write with the heart’s blood of some one else. ”

“ In the midst of October following I made a journey into Hampshire, to make a survey of a [27] part of the forest of East Bere, [252] being then in the occupation of the Right Honourable the Earl of Worcester, of whom, after my return, Sir Robert Mansell and Sir John Trevor bought 3000 trees.
At my return to London from that journey I found my eldest brother Joseph Pett, then dwelling at Limehouse, very dangerously sick, of the which he never recovered but departed this life the 15th day of November about 9 of the clock in the forenoon, being Friday. ”

“ Pett sensed it with every nerve of his apprehensive person. He gazed at Ann, and as he did so the years seemed to slip from him and he was a boy again, about to be urged to lawless courses by the superior will of his boyhood's hero, Hammond Chester. In the boyhood of nearly every man there is a single outstanding figure, some one youthful hypnotic Napoleon whose will was law and at whose bidding his better judgment curled up and died. In Mr. Pett's life Ann's father had filled this role. He had dominated Mr. Pett at an age when the mind is most malleable. ”

“ Pett and Canada Pete had got this animal harnessed up with odds and ends of rope and leather, they sat down and wiped their brows. Then Mr. Pett started off to notify Mrs. Samantha Spaulding.
Mr. Pett was a man unused to feminine society, except such as he had grown up with from early childhood, and he was of a naturally modest, even bashful disposition. It is not surprising, therefore, that he was startled when, on re-entering the living-room of Canada Pete’s camp, he found himself face to face with a strange lady, and a lady, at that, of a strangeness that he had never conceived of before. ”

“ Who all our seamen cheated of their debt? And all our prizes who did swallow? Pett. Who did advise no navy out to set? And who the forts left unprepared? Pett. Who to supply with powder did forget Languard, Sheerness, Gravesend, and Upnor? Pett. Who all our ships exposed in Chatham net? Who should it be but the fanatick Pett? Pett, the sea-architect, in making ships, Was the first cause of all these naval slips. Had he not built, none of these faults had been; If no creation, there had been no sin But his great crime, one boat away he sent, That lost our fleet, and did our flight prevent. ”

“ Pett might well have provoked a blank stare of amazement. Such, however, is the almost superhuman intelligence and quickness of mind engendered by the study of America's national game that he answered without the slightest hesitation.
"Giants!"
"Wow!" said the butler.
No sense of anything strange or untoward about the situation came to mar the perfect joy of Mr. Pett, the overmastering joy of the baseball fan who in a strange land unexpectedly encounters a brother. He thrilled with a happiness which he had never hoped to feel that morning. ”

“ Pett.
"Peter!"
Mr. Pett looked like an under-sized lion as he faced his wife. He bristled. The recollection of all that he had suffered from Ogden came to strengthen his determination.
"I've tried for two years to get you to send that boy to a good boarding-school, and you wouldn't do it. I couldn't stand having him loafing around the house any longer, so I told Jerry Mitchell to take him away to a friend of his who keeps a dogs' hospital on Long Island and to tell his friend to hold him there till he got some sense into him. ”

“ I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll buy a pair of flannel trousers and a sweater and some sneakers, and I'll take him for a run up Riverside Drive this evening. Do him no end of good. And a good skipping-rope, too. Nothing like it. In a couple of weeks I'll have him as fit as a—"
"Ogden's case," said Mrs. Pett coldly, "which is very complicated, is in the hands of Doctor Briginshaw, in whom we have every confidence."
There was a silence, the paralysing effects of which Mr. Pett vainly tried to mitigate by shuffling his feet and coughing. Mrs. Pett spoke. ”

“ He gone I to dinner, and then to the office, where busy all the afternoon. At night walked in the garden with my wife, and so I home to supper and to bed. Sir W. Pen is gone down to Sheernesse to-day to see things made ready against the fleete shall come in again, which makes Pett mad, and calls him dissembling knave, and that himself takes all the pains and is blamed, while he do nothing but hinder business and takes all the honour of it to himself, and tells me plainly he will fling, up his commission rather than bear it. ”

“ Pett had such strong objections, and in addition to these she had collected so many more of a like breed from the environs of Washington Square that the air was clamorous with the hoarse cries of futurist painters, esoteric Buddhists, vers libre poets, interior decorators, and stage reformers, sifted in among the more conventional members of society who had come to listen to them. Men with new religions drank tea with women with new hats. ”

“ The first point made against him is that while he was keeper of the timber store at Chatham he had failed to reject bad timber and plank brought in by one of the purveyors. His answer to this was 'that Sir Henry Palmer had been so quick with him for some of these exceptions as he would complain no more though the purveyors brought in faggot sticks.' He is next charged with certain malpractices in connexion with the Resistance, and other charges on this account are brought against him further on ”

“ Van Petten is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Modern Woodmen of America, at Burlingame. In politics he is a republican, but not an office seeker, and while he has taken some interest in local affairs of a public character, it has been merely as a booster for his friends and his party. He is a member of the First Methodist Church and is a class leader therein, but as his business keeps him away from the city a great deal of the time he is not able to be as active in religious work as he would prefer. ”

“ He was in the power of these two, whom he had long since recognized as an un [Pg 279] scrupulous woman and a shifty man. They had nothing to do but hand him over to the police if they liked: for anything he knew, Chris Pett might already have played false and told the police of affairs at the cottage. And yet on deeper reflection, he did not think that possible—for it was evident that aunt and nephew were after all they could get, and they would get nothing from the police authorities, while they might get a good deal from him. ”

“ Pett was glad to come out of his shell here. He was the Apostle of Work, and this sentiment pleased him.
"That's right," he said. "Every boy ought to have work."
"Look at this young Crocker's record since he went to live in London. He is always doing something to make himself notorious. There was that breach-of-promise case, and that fight at the political meeting, and his escapades at Monte Carlo, and—and everything. And he must be drinking himself to death. I think Eugenia's insane. She seems to have no influence over him at all."
Mr. Pett moaned sympathetically. ”

“ Civic authorities had deliberately chosen a moonless night for this experiment. Mother Nature had collaborated by veiling the sky with a thick overcast, making the night starless as well. The street upon which Peter stood was as black as a whale's belly. Except for—
"Oh, mercy me!" bleated Peter, "this will never do!"
And his panic subsiding in the face of this unallowable thing, he scurried down the street to a dwelling beneath the lowered blinds of which escaped one lone, betraying slant of light. Hastily he ascended its steps, more hastily rapped on the door. ”

“ But, Lord! it is pretty to see how Pett hugs this business, and how he favours my Lord Bruncker; who to my knowledge hates him, and has said more to his disadvantage, in my presence, to the King and Duke of York than any man in England, and so let them thrive one with another by cheating one another, for that is all I observe among them. Thence home late, and find my wife hath dined, and she and Mrs. Hewer going to a play. Here was Creed, and he and I to Devonshire House, to a burial of a kinsman of Sir R. Viner’s ”

“ PETTUS, Sir JOHN (1613–1690) , deputy governor of the royal mines, was the third son of Sir Augustine Pettus of Rackheath, Norfolk, by his second wife, Abigail, third daughter of Sir Arthur Heveningham of Heveningham, Suffolk. Born in 1613, he entered the service of Charles I in 1639, and was knighted on 25 Nov. 1641, as a mark of the king's favour to Sir Richard Gurney [q. v.] , lord mayor of London, whose daughter Elizabeth Pettus had married in 1639. Taken prisoner by Cromwell at Lowestoft, he was exchanged after fourteen months' confinement in Windsor Castle. ”

“ Pett retired, fermenting. He wondered how another man would have handled this situation. The ridiculous inconsistency of the human character infuriated him. Why should he be a totally different man on Riverside Drive from the person he was in Pine Street? Why should he be able to hold his own in Pine Street with grown men—whiskered, square-jawed financiers—and yet be unable on Riverside Drive to eject a fourteen-year-old boy from an easy chair? ”

“ EVIDENCES OF HIS SAGACITY IN THE DISCOVERY OF TRUTH. Possessing the talent of eloquence, the quickness of wit, and the diversified knowledge which produced his "Table-talk," we find also many evidences of his sagacity in the discovery of truth, with that patient zeal so honourable to a monarch. When the shipwrights, jealous of Pett, our great naval architect, formed a party against him, the king would judge with his own eyes. Having examined the materials depreciated by Pett's accusers, he declared that "the cross-grain was in the men, not in the timber." ”