The Book of Buried Treasure Part 14

The "fair brick house" was of two stories with a portico and columns.

It stood on the corner of the present Salem Street (then the Green Lane) and Charter Street, so named by Sir William Phips in honor of the new charter under which he became the first provincial or royal governor. There was a lawn and gardens, a watch-house and stables, and a stately row of b.u.t.ternuts. "North Boston" was then the fas.h.i.+onable or "Court end" of the town.

The Puritans and Pilgrims were seething with indignation against the royal government overseas. The original charter under which the Colony of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay exercised self-government had been annulled, and Charles II was determined to bring all the New England Colonies under the sway of a royal governor. The question of taxation had also begun to simmer a full century before the Revolution. Sir William Phips found his berth of High Sheriff a difficult and turbulent business, and "the infamous Government then rampant there, found a way wholly to put by the execution of his patent; yea, he was like to have had his person a.s.sa.s.sinated in the face of the sun, before his own door."

This rough s.h.i.+p carpenter and treasure seeker weathered the storm and rose so high in the good graces of the throne that in 1692 he carried to Ma.s.sachusetts the new charter signed by William III by virtue of which he became the first royal governor of that colony, and as an administrator he was no less interesting than when he was cruising off the coast of Hispaniola. The manners of the quarterdeck he carried to the governor's office. His fists were as ready as his tongue, and his term of two years was enlivened by one l.u.s.ty quarrel after another. In nowise ashamed of his humble beginnings, he gave a dinner to his old friends of the Boston s.h.i.+p-yard and told these honest artisans that if it were not for his service to the people, he "would be much easier in returning to his broad axe again."

Hawthorne has given a picture of him in the days of his greatness, "a man of strong and st.u.r.dy frame, whose face has been roughened by northern tempests, and blackened by the burning sun of the West Indies.

He wears an immense periwig flowing down over his shoulders. His coat has a wide embroidery of golden foliage, and his waistcoat likewise is all flowered over and bedizened with gold. His red, rough hands, which have done many a good day's work with the hammer and adze, are half covered by the delicate lace ruffles at his wrists. On a table lies his silver-headed sword, and in a corner of the room stands his gold-headed cane, made of a beautifully polished West India wood."

Cotton Mather helps to complete the presentment by relating that "he was very tall, beyond the common set of men, and thick as well as tall, and strong as well as thick. He was in all respects exceedingly robust, and able to conquer such difficulties of diet and travel as would have killed most men alive. Nor did the fat whereinto he grew very much in his later years, take away the vigor of his motions."

As a fighting seaman and soldier, Sir William Phips saw hard service before he was made royal governor. In 1690 he was in command of an expedition which made a successful raid on the French in Arcadia, captured Port Royal, and conquered the province. Among the English state papers in the Public Record office is his own account of this feat of arms of his expedition against Quebec. "In March, 1690," he wrote, "I sailed with seven s.h.i.+ps and seven hundred men, raised by the people of New England, reduced Arcadia in three weeks and returned to Boston. It was then thought well to prosecute a further expedition.

2300 men were raised, with whom and with about thirty s.h.i.+ps I sailed from New England on the 10th, August, 1690, but by bad weather and contrary winds did not reach Quebec till October. The frost was already so sharp that it made two inches of ice in a night.

"After summoning Count de Frontenac and receiving a reviling answer, I brought my s.h.i.+ps up within musket shot of their cannon and fired with such success that I dismounted several of their largest cannon and beat them from their works in less than twenty-four hours. At the same time 1400 men, who had been landed, defeated a great part of the enemy, and by the account of the prisoners, the city must have been taken in two or three days, but the small-pox and fever increased so fast as to delay the pus.h.i.+ng of the siege till the weather became too severe to permit it. On my leaving Quebec, I received several messages from French merchants of the best reputation, saying how uneasy they were under French administration, and how willing they were to be under their Majesties."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Permit issued by Sir William Phips as royal governor in which he uses the t.i.tle "Vice Admiral" which involved him in disastrous quarrels.]

In a "Narrative of the Expedition against Quebec," written at the time, is this pa.s.sage:

"Whilst these things were doing on sh.o.r.e, Sir Wm. Phips with his men of war came close up to ye City. He did acquit himself with ye greatest bravery. I have diligently enquired of those that know it who affirm there was nothing wanting in his Part, either as to Conduct or Courage.

He ventured within Pistol shot of their cannon, and soon beat them from thence, and battered ye Town very much. He was for some Hours warmly entertained with their great Guns. The Vessel wherein Sir William commanded had 200 men. It was shot through in a hundred places with shot of twenty-four pound weight; yet through ye wonderful Providence of G.o.d, but one man was killed and two mortally wounded in that hot Engagement, which continued ye greatest part of ye night and ye next day several hours."

Another letter written by Sir William Phips, addressed from Boston to William Blathwayt, soon after he was made Governor, shows him in a light even more engaging. The witchcraft frenzy was at its height, and only three weeks before this date, October 12, 1692, fourteen men and women had been hanged in Salem. This letter, as copied from the original doc.u.ment, runs as follows:

"On my arrival I found this Province miserably harra.s.sed by a most horrible witchcraft or possession of devils, which had broken in upon several towns. Some scores of poor people were taken with preternatural torments; some were scalded with brimstone; some had pins stuck into their flesh, others were hurried into fire and water, and some were dragged out of their houses and carried over the tops of trees and hills for many miles together.

"It has been represented to me as much like that of Sweden thirty years ago, and there were many committed to prison on suspicion of witchcraft before my arrival. The loud cries and clamor of the friends of the afflicted, together with the advice of the Deputy Governor and Council, prevailed with me to appoint a Court of Oyer and Terminer to discover what witchcraft might be at the bottom, and whether it were not a possession. The chief judge was the Deputy Governor, and the rest people of the best prudence and figure that could be pitched upon.

"At Salem in Ess.e.x County they convicted more than twenty persons of witchcraft, and some of the accused confessed their guilt. The Court, as I understand, began their proceedings with the accusations of the afflicted persons, and then went upon other evidences to strengthen that. I was in the East of the Colony throughout almost the whole of the proceedings, trusting to the Court as the right method of dealing with cases of witchcraft. But when I returned I found many persons in a strange ferment of dissatisfaction which was increased by some hot spirits that blew upon the flame. But on enquiry into the matter, I found that the Devil had taken upon him the name and shape of several persons who were doubtless innocent, for which cause I have now forbidden the committal of any more accused persons.

"And them that have been committed I would shelter from any proceedings wherein the innocent could suffer wrong. I would also await the King's orders in this perplexing affair. I have put a stop to the printing of any discourses on either side that may increase useless disputes, for open contests would mean an unextinguishable flame. I have been grieved to see that some who should have done better services to their Majesties and this Province have so far taken counsel with pa.s.sion as to declare the precipitancy of these matters.... As soon as I had done fighting the King's enemies, and understood the danger of innocent people through the accusations of the afflicted, I put a stop to the Court proceedings till the King's pleasure should be known."

It was Governor Phips who suppressed the witchcraft persecutions and the special court that had pa.s.sed so many wicked death sentences was shorn of its powers by his order. Other prisoners were later acquitted, and a hundred and fifty released from jail. No sooner was this burly figure of a man finished with the witchcraft business than he was leading a force of Indian allies against the French. "His birth and youth in the East had rendered him well known to the Indians there," says Cotton Mather, "he had hunted and fished many a weary day in his childhood with them; and when these rude savages had got the story that he had found a s.h.i.+p full of money, and was now become all one a King, they were mightily astonished at it; but when they further understood that he was now become the Governor of New England, it added a further degree of consternation to their astonishment."

He was too strenuous a person, was this astonis.h.i.+ng William Phips, to remain tamed and conservative when there was no strong work in hand.

With that gold-headed cane of his he cracked the head of the Captain of the _Nonesuch_ frigate of the royal navy, and with his hard fists he pounded the Collector of the Port after swearing at him with such oaths as better befitted a buccaneer than the governor of the province.

These quarrels arose from a dispute over the authority of Sir William to lay down the law as he pleased. By virtue of his commission as Vice Admiral of the Colony he held that he had the right to judge and condemn naval prizes. The Collector claimed jurisdiction and when he refused to deliver a cargo of plunder brought in by a privateer, the governor blacked his eyes for him.

As for the naval skipper, Captain Short, his experience with the Phips temper was even more disastrous. He refused to lend some of his men to man a cruiser which the governor wished to send after coastwise pirates. When next the twain met, Captain Short was first well threshed, then bundled off to prison, and from there skipped home to England in a merchantman.

Such methods of administration had served admirably well to rule those mutinous dogs of seamen aboard the _Rose_ frigate, but they were resented in Boston, and after other altercations, Governor Phips found it necessary to go to England to answer the complaints which had been piling up in the offices of the Lords of the Council of Trade and Plantations. He sailed in his own yacht, a brigantine built in a Boston s.h.i.+pyard, and we may be sure that he was ready to face his accusers with a stout heart.

Hutchinson, in his History of Ma.s.sachusetts, a.n.a.lyzed the trouble as follows:

"Sir William Phips' rule was short. His conduct when captain of a s.h.i.+p of war is represented very much to his advantage; but further talents were necessary for the good government of a province. He was of a benevolent, friendly disposition; at the same time quick and pa.s.sionate....

"A vessel arrived from the Bahamas, with a load of fustick, for which no bond had been given. Col. 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 _Nonesuch_ frigate. In their pa.s.sage 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 Captain Short in the street, warm words pa.s.sed, 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 London, to be delivered to the order of one of their Majesties' princ.i.p.al secretaries of state; giving the master a warrant or authority to do so. The vessel, by some accident, put into Portsmouth in New Hamps.h.i.+re. Sir William who seems to have been sensible of some irregularity in these proceedings, went to Portsmouth, required the master of the merchantman to return him the warrant, which he tore to pieces, and then ordered the cabin of the s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sage 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 s.h.i.+p, until a new captain arrived from England. Short was restored to the command of as good a s.h.i.+p."

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 deserved.

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 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 s.h.i.+p, and also a boat at sea, with persons in the water; these beheld by a winged eye, all done in ba.s.so 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-s.h.i.+p 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 princ.i.p.al inhabitants of New England, he accepted of the Government of the Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 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 p.r.o.nounce him the Best Conditioned Gentleman in the World."

After he had wrested his fortune from the bottom of the sea in circ.u.mstances 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 s.h.i.+p 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 Fis.h.i.+ng-Trade, upon a mighty shelf of rocks and bank of sands that lie where he had informed himself."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The oldest existing print of Boston harbor as it appeared in the time of Sir William Phips, showing the kind of s.h.i.+ps in which he sailed to find his treasure.]

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 s.h.i.+p 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 administered by Christopher Columbus. He put Columbus in chains and s.h.i.+pped 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 s.h.i.+p 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 ma.s.s of virgin gold which Peter Martyr affirmed had been fas.h.i.+oned 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 s.h.i.+ps to remain in port because a storm was imminent. The pilots and seamen 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 s.h.i.+p 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 have planned to go in search of her. If, however, the s.h.i.+p 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 n.o.body knows the bearings of that "mighty shelf of rock and bank of sands that lie where he had informed himself."

[1] In order to make easier reading, this and the following extracts from Cotton Mather's narrative are somewhat modernized in respect of quaint spelling, punctuation, and the use of capitals, although, of course, the wording is unchanged.