Historical Tales [calibre 5.4.1]

Every one acknowledged that the discoverer owed his success to merit, not to luck. He was evidently a man of the highest capacity, and might, had he chosen, have filled high places and gained great honors in England. But America was his native land, and he was not to be kept from its shores.

He became such a favorite at court, that one day, when King James was particularly gracious to him, and asked him what favor he desired, he replied that he asked nothing for himself, but hoped that the king would restore to his native province its lost liberties, by returning the charter of which it had been deprived.

"Anything but that!" exclaimed James, who had no idea of restoring liberty to mother-land or colony.

He appointed Phips, however, high sheriff of New England, and the adventurer returned home as a man of power and station. On his way there he visited the silver-ship again, and succeeded in adding something of value to his fortune. Then, sailing to Boston, he rejoined his wife after a five years' absence, and, to complete the realization of his predictions, immediately began to build himself a "fair brick house in Green Lane."

We have finished our story, which was to tell how the sheep-boy of the Kennebec rose to be high sheriff of New England, with the privilege of writing "Sir" before his name. His after-life was little less memorable than the part of it told, but we have no space left to tell it in.

King James was soon driven from the throne, and King William took his place, but Sir William Phips retained his power and influence. In 1690 he led an army against Port Royal in Acadia, took it, and came back to receive the plaudits of the Bostonians. He next attempted to conquer all Canada from the French, attacked Quebec with a strong force, but was repulsed, largely in consequence of a storm that scattered his ships. The Bostonians had now no plaudits for him. The expedition had cost New England about forty thousand pounds, and there was not a penny in the treasury. The difficulty was overcome by the issue of treasury-notes, an expedient which was not adopted in England till five years afterwards. Charles Montagu, the alleged inventor of exchequer bills doubtless owed his idea to the sharp-witted Bostonians.

The beginning of 1692 found Sir William again in England, whence he came back to his native land as captain-general and governor-in-chief of the colony of Massachusetts. From sheep-boy he had risen to the title of "Your Excellency." Phips was governor of Massachusetts during the witchcraft delusion. The part he took in it was not a very active one; but when, in 1693, he found that grand juries were beginning to throw out indictments, and petit juries to return verdicts of "Not guilty," he ended the whole mad business by emptying the prisons, then containing about one hundred and fifty persons committed, while over two hundred more were accused. In 1693 Governor Phips led an expedition against the Indians of Maine, and forced them to conclude a treaty of peace. In 1694 he went to England, to answer certain accusations against his conduct as governor, and here was taken suddenly sick, and died February 18, 1695.

The noble house of Phips, thus instituted, has steadily grown in rank and dignity since that date, bearing successively the titles of baron, viscount, earl, until finally, in 1838, a Phips attained the rank of marquis of Normandy. It is a remarkable development from the life of that poor boy, one of a family of twenty-six, whose early life was spent in tending sheep in the wilderness of Maine.