It becomes necessary, at this stage, to discuss first, the method of administering the English navy at this date, October 1st, 1688, devoting, in so doing, a special attention to the matériel and personnel which the administration controlled; secondly, to add a brief similar survey of Dutch naval organisation; and lastly, to comment, in few and general remarks, on the navy of Louis XIV.

It was following a spell of five years of disordered governance in naval affairs that James, Duke of York, a little before his brother's death, was virtually restored to the control of the service he so well knew; and Samuel Pepys, who had fallen under official displeasure at James's downfall, came back to act as James's Secretary. Pepys was no less anxious than his master that the service he too knew and loved should prosper; and it was he who was chiefly responsible for pushing on a scheme which, just before the death of Charles II, had received the preliminary assurances of success. By this scheme a special commission of properly qualified persons, endowed with adequate funds (some £400,000 annually, to be paid in quarterly instalments) was instructed to clear up, in three years, all the legacy of past disorder and to refurbish the great weapon of national and trade defence.