Everything about William Phips totally explained
Sir William Phips (or
Phipps) (
February 2,
1651 –
February 18,
1695) was a colonial governor of
Massachusetts.
Military career
Phips was born at
Woolwich, Maine, near the mouth of the
Kennebec River, the twenty-sixth child in his family. He was a poor shepherd until he was eighteen, and then a ship carpenter's apprentice in Maine for four years. He worked at his trade in
Boston, Massachusetts for a year where he learned to read and write. With his wife's property he established a shipyard on the Sheepscot river in Maine, but soon abandoned it because of clashes with the
Native Americans, in which the settlement was burned to ground after everyone escaped in a ship that had been built. In 1684-1686, with a commission from the British Crown, he searched vainly for a wrecked Spanish treasure ship of which he'd heard while on a voyage to the
Bahamas; he found this vessel in 1687, and from it recovered £300,000.
Of this amount much went to the
Duke of Albemarle, who had fitted out the second expedition. Phips received £16,000 as his share, was knighted by
James II, and was appointed sheriff of
New England under
Sir Edmund Andros. Poorly educated and ignorant of law, Phips could accomplish little, and returned to England. In
1689 he returned to Massachusetts, found a revolutionary government in control, and at once entered into the life of the colony.
He joined
Cotton Mather's, North Church in Boston, and was appointed by the General Court commander of an expedition against the French in
Canada. The expedition sailed in April of 1690 and captured
Port Royal, Nova Scotia. A much larger expedition led by Phips in July against
Quebec ended disastrously. Phips generously bought at their par value, in order to give them credit in the colony, many of the colony's bills issued to pay for the expedition.
England
In the winter of
1690 he returned to England, vainly sought aid for another expedition against Canada, and urged, with
Increase Mather, the colonial agent, a restoration of the colony's charter, annulled during the reign of
Charles II. The Crown, at the suggestion of Mather, appointed him the first royal governor under the new charter.
Salem witch trials
On reaching Boston in May 1692, Phips found the colony in a disordered condition, and though honest, persevering and disinclined to further his own interests at the expense of the people, he was unfit for the difficult position. He appointed a
special commission to try
the witchcraft cases, but did nothing to stop the witchcraft mania, and suspended the sittings of the court only after great atrocities had been committed.
In defending the frontier he displayed great energy, but his policy of building forts was expensive and therefore unpopular. Having the manners of a 17th-century sea captain, he became involved in many quarrels, and engaged in a bitter controversy with Governor
Benjamin Fletcher of
New York. Numerous complaints to the home government resulted in his being summoned to England to answer charges.
While in
London awaiting trial, he died on
February 18,
1695. He was buried in London in the yard of the Church of St. Mary Woolnoth.
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