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The Wondrous Fortune of William Phifs: Collector

THE FORTUNE OF WILLIAM PHIPS 153 Foster, a merchant of Boston, a member of the Council, and fast friend of the Governor, bought the fustick at such price that he was loth to give up the bargain. The Collector seized the vessel and goods; and upon Foster's representation to the Governor, he interposed. There was at that time no Court of Admiralty. Sir William took a summary way of deciding this case, and sent an order to the Collector to forbear meddling with the goods, and upon his refusal to observe orders, the Governor went to the wharf, and after warm words on both sides, laid hands upon the Collector, but with what degree of violence was controverted by both. The Governor prevailed, and the vessel and goods were taken out of the hands of the Collector. `There had been a misunderstanding also between the Governor and Captain Short of the None-such frigate. In their passage from England a prize was taken; and Short complained that the Governor had deprived him of part of his share or legal interest in her. Whether there were grounds for it does not appear. The captains of men of war stationed in the colonies were in those days required to follow such instructions as the governors gave them relative to their cruises and the protection of the trade of the colonies, and the Governor, by his commission, had power in case of any great crime committed by any of the captains of men of war, to suspend them, and the next officer was to succeed. "The Governor required Captain Short to order part of the men belonging to the Nonesuch upon some service, which I do not find mentioned, probably to some cruiser, there being many picaroons about the eastern coasts, but he refused to do it. This was ill taken by the Governor; and meeting 154 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE Captain Short in the street, warm words passed, and at length the Governor made use of his cane and broke Short's head. Not content with this, he committed him to prison. The right of a governor to commit by his own warrant had not then been questioned. "From the prison he removed him to the castle, and from those on board a merchant bound to Lon-don, to be delivered to the order of one of their Majesties' principal secretaries of state; giving the master a warrant or authority to do so. The vessel, by some accident, put into Portsmouth in New Hampshire. Sir William who seems to have been sensible of some irregularity in these proceedings, went to Portsmouth, required the master of the merchant-man to return him the warrant, which he tore to pieces, and then ordered the cabin of the ship to be opened, secured Short's chests, and examined the contents. "Short was prevented going home in this vessel, and went to New York to take passage from thence for England; but Sir F. Wheeler arriving soon after at Boston, went for him and carried him home with him. The next officer succeeded in the command of the ship, until a new captain arrived from England. Short was restored to the command of as good a ship." King William refused to depose the famous treasure finder without hearing what he had to say in his defense, and Sir William stoutly swore that those whom he had punished got no more than they de-served. A strong party had been mustered against him, however, and he waged an uphill fight for vindication until Death, the one foe for whom he did not think himself a match, took him by the heels THE FORTUNE OF WILLIAM PHIPS 155 and laid him in a vault beneath the Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, London. A guide-book of that city, published in 1708, contained this description of the memorial placed therein : "At the east end of the Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, near the northeast angle, is a pretty white marble monument, adorned with an urn between two Cupids, the figure of a ship, and also a boat at sea, with persons in the water; these beheld by a winged eye, all done in basso relieve; also the seven medals, as that of King William and Queen Mary; some with Spanish impressions, as the castle, cross-portent, etc. and likewise the figures of a sea quadrant; cross-staff, and this inscription: 'Near this place is interred the Body of Sir William Phips, knight; who in the year 1687, by his great industry, discovered among the rocks near the Banks of Bahama on the north side of Hispaniola a Spanish plate-ship which had been under water 44 years, out of which he took in gold and silver to the value of 300,000 sterling : and with a fidelity equal to his conduct, brought it all to London, where it was divided between himself and the rest of the adventurers. For which great service he was knighted by his then Majesty, King James the 2nd, and at the request of the principal inhabitants of New England, he accepted of the Government of the Massachusetts, in which he continued up to the time of his death; and discharged his trust with that zeal for the interests of the country, and with so little regard to his own private advantage, that he justly gained the good esteem and affection of the greatest and best part of the inhabitants of that Colony. " `He died the 18th of February, 1694, and his 156 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE lady, to perpetuate his memory, hath caused this monument to be erected.' " It is far better to know the man as he was, rough-hewn, hasty, unlettered, but simple and honest as daylight, than to accept the false and silly epitaph of Cotton Mather, that "he was a person of so sweet a temper that they who were most intimately acquainted with him would commonly pronounce him the Best Conditioned Gentleman in the World." After he had wrested his fortune from the bottom of the sea in circumstances splendidly romantic, he used the power which his wealth gained for him wholly in the service of the people of his own country. During his last visit to London, when he had grown tired of being a royal governor, he harked back to his old love, and was planning another treasure voyage. "The Spanish wreck was not the only nor the richest wreck which he knew to be lying under the water. He knew particularly that when the ship which had Governor Bobadilla aboard was cast away, there was, as Peter Martyr says, an entire table of Gold of Three Thousand Three Hundred and Ten Pounds Weight. And supposing himself to have gained sufficient information of the right way to such a wreck, it was his purpose upon his dismission from his Government, once more to have gone upon his old Fishing-Trade, upon a mighty shelf of rocks and bank of sands that lie where he had informed himself." Never was there so haunting a reference to lost treasure as this mention of that gold table that went down with Governor Bobadilla. The words ring like a peal of magic bells. Alas, the pity of it, that Sir William Phips did not live to fit out a brave ship THE FORTUNE OF WILLIAM PHIPS 157 and go in quest of this wondrous treasure, for of all men, then or since, he was the man to find it. Bobadilla was that governor of Hispaniola who was sent from Spain in 1500 by Ferdinand and Isabella to investigate the affairs of the colony as ad-ministered by Christopher Columbus. He put Columbus in chains and shipped him home, but the great discoverer found a friendly welcome there, and was sent back for his fourth voyage. He reached Hispaniola on the day that Bobadilla was sailing for Spain, in his turn to give place to a new Governor, Ovando by name. Bobadilla embarked at San Domingo in the largest ship of the fleet on board of which was put an immense amount of gold, the revenue collected for the Crown during his government, which he hoped might ease the disgrace of his recall. The Spanish historian, Las Casas, besides other old chroniclers, mention this solid mass of virgin gold which Peter Martyr affirmed had been fashioned into a table. This enormous nugget had been found by an Indian woman in a brook on the estate of Francisco de Garay and Miguel Diaz and had been taken by Bobadilla to send to the king. According to Las Casas, it weighed three thousand, six hundred castellanos. When Bobadilla's fleet weighed anchor, Columbus sent a messenger urging the ships to remain in port because a storm was imminent. The pilots and sea-men scoffed at the warning, and the galleons stood out from San Domingo only to meet a tropical hurricane of terrific violence. Off the most easterly point of Hispaniola, Bobadilla's ship went down with all on board. If this galleon carrying the gold table, besides much other treasure, had foundered in deep water, it is unlikely that Sir William Phips would 158 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE have planned to go in search of her. If, however, the ship had been smashed on a reef, he may have "fished up" information from some other ancient Spaniard as to her exact location. The secret was buried in his grave and he left no chart to show where he hoped to find that marvelous treasure, and nobody knows the bearings of that "mighty shelf of rock and bank of sands that lie where he had informed himself."