Even the Companies of the City of London clubbed their means together for the purpose of sending out Sir Waiter Raleigh to capture Spanish ships, and afterwards to divide the plunder; as any one may see on referring to the documents of the London Corporation.[18] The adventure in which Pett was concerned did not prove very fortunate.
He was absent for about twenty months on the coasts of Spain and Barbary, and in the Levant, enduring much misery for want of victuals and apparel, and "without taking any purchase of any value." The Constance returned to the Irish coast, "extreme poorly." The vessel entered Cork harbour, and then Pett, thoroughly disgusted with privateering life, took leave of both ship and voyage.

With much difficulty, he made his way across the country to Waterford, from whence he took ship for London.

He arrived there three days before Christmas, 1594, in a beggarly condition, and made his way to his brother Peter's house at Wapping, who again kindly entertained him.
The elder brother Joseph received him more coldly, though he lent him forty shillings to find himself in clothes.

At that time, the fleet was ordered to be got ready for the last expedition of Drake and Hawkins to the West Indies.

The Defiance was sent into Woolwich dock to be sheathed; and as Joseph Pett was in charge of the job, he allowed his brother to be employed as a carpenter.
In the following year, Phineas succeeded in attracting the notice of Matthew Baker, who was commissioned to rebuild Her Majesty's Triumph.
Baker employed Pett as an ordinary workman; but he had scarcely begun the job before Baker was ordered to proceed with the building of a great new ship at Deptford, called the Repulse.
Phineas wished to follow the progress of the Triumph, but finding his brother Joseph unwilling to retain him in his employment, he followed Baker to Deptford, and continued to work at the Repulse until she was finished, launched, and set sail on her voyage, at the end of April, 1596.