"[29] Nor was this the only loss that Pett met with
this year. The King, he states, "bestowed upon me for the supply
of my present relief the making of a knight-baronet," which
authority Pett passed to a recusant, one Francis Ratcliffe, for
700L.; but that worthy defrauded him, so that he lost 30L. by the
bargain.
Next year, Pett was despatched by the Government to the New
Forest in Hampshire, "where," he says, "one Sir Giles
Mompesson[30] had made a vast waste in the spoil of his Majesty's
timber, to redress which I was employed thither, to make choice
out of the number of trees he had felled of all such timber as
was useful for shipping, in which business I spent a great deal
of time, and brought myself into a great deal of trouble." About
this period, poor Pett's wife and two of his children lay for
some time at death's door. Then more enquiries took place into
the abuses of the dockyards, in which it was sought to implicate
Pett. During the next three years (1618-20) he worked under the
immediate orders of the Commissioners in the New Dock at Chatham.
In 1620, Pett's friend Sir Robert Mansell was appointed General
of the Fleet destined to chastise the Algerine pirates, who still
continued their depredations on the shipping in the Channel, and
the King thereupon commissioned Pett to build with all dispatch
two pinnaces, of 120 and 80 tons respectively.
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