One of the purposes of compiling the ‘Book of Sea Causes’ in 1559 had been to facilitate a realistic estimate of how much the navy should cost in the future. Expenses had skyrocketed during the war which was then coming to an end, and a difficult balance had to be struck between the demands of economy and the need to maintain a realistic deterrent against aggression. Lord Treasurer Winchester had proposed an ordinary of £14,000, to be reduced eventually to £10,000, for the peacetime navy, and it was upon that calculation that Elizabeth based her standing warrant for £12,000 in March 1559, almost immediately after receiving the Book. This was intended to cover the costs of the navy in harbour. That is the wages of the shipkeepers who looked after the vessels at their moorings, and their victuals; the wages and victuals of the workmen carrying out routine maintenance; the wages of the permanent staff; and the costs of ‘riding’ – that is, carrying messages to and fro between the officers and the Privy Council. However the relationship between ordinary income and expenditure was never straightforward. In 1562 Gonson's ordinary income matched the warrant – £12,000 – however his ordinary expenditure was £13,565. This shortfall was more than covered by the fact that his extraordinary spending only amounted to £4,190, while his extraordinary income was £12,376. Allowing for the fact that he started with a ‘surplusage’ (deficit) of £7,728, he should have ended the year with a deficit of only about £1,100. However he accounted for 1562 and 1563 together, and the latter year showed quite a different pattern. This time (although the warrant was still in force) he received only £9,630, whereas his expenditure classed as ordinary shot up to £23,470. This would suggest that much of the preparation for the Newhaven expedition was passed on the ordinary budget because it involved repairs of a nature which would have had to be carried out anyway, but were brought forward because of this campaign. Gonson was granted extraordinary warrants to the total of £19,000, and spent £18,390, but this made only a very small dent in his ordinary deficit. When he accounted in December 1563, his ‘surplusage’ had gone up to £9,521.