While these jolly treasure seekers were hauling up the silver hand over fist, one Adderley, a seaman of the New Providence in the Bahamas, was hired with his vessel to help in the gorgeous salvage operations. Alas, after Adderley had recovered six tons of bullion, the sight of so much treasure was too much for him. He took his share to the Bermudas and led such a gay life with it that he went mad and died after a year or two. Hard-hearted William Phips was a man of another kind, and he drove his crew of divers and wreckers, the sailors keeping busy on deck at hammering from the silver bars a crust of limestone several inches thick from which "they knocked out whole bushels of pieces of eight which were grown thereinto. Besides that incredible treasure of plate in various forms, thus fetched up from seven or eight fathoms under water, there were vast riches of Gold, and Pearls, and Jewels, which they also lit upon: and indeed for a more comprehensive invoice, I must but summarily say, All that a Spanish frigot was to be enriched withal."
At length the little squadron ran short of provisions, and most reluctantly Captain Phips decided to run for England with his precious cargo and return the next year. He swore all his men to secrecy, believing that there was more good fishing at the wreck. During the homeward voyage, his seamen quite naturally yearned for a share of the profits, they having signed on for monthly wages. They were for taking the ship "to be gone and lead a short life and a merry one," but Phips argued them out of this rebellious state of mind, promising every man a share of the silver, and if his employers would not agree to this, to pay them from his own pocket.
Up the Thames sailed the lucky little merchantman, James and Mary in the year of 1687, with three hundred thousand pounds sterling freightage of treasure in her hold, which would amount to a good deal more than a million and a half dollars nowadays. Captain Phips played fair with his seamen, and they fled ashore in the greatest good humor to fling their pieces of eight among the taverns and girls of Wapping, Limehouse, and Rotherhite. The King was given his tenth of the cargo, and a handsome fortune it was. To Phips fell his allotted share of a sixteenth, which set him up with sixteen thousand pounds sterling. The Duke of Albemarle was so much gratified that he sent to that "gentlewoman" Mrs. William Phips, a gold cup worth a thousand pounds. Phips showed himself an honest man in age when sea morals were exceeding lax, and not a penny of the treasure, beyond what was due him, stuck to his fingers. Men of his integrity were not over plentiful in England after the Restoration, and the King liked and trusted this brusque, stalwart sailor from New England. At Windsor Castle he was knighted and now it was Sir William Phips, if you please.
Judge Sewall's diary contains this entry, Friday, October 21, 1687:
"I went to offer my Lady Phips my House by Mr. Moody's and to congratulate her preferment. As to the former, she had bought Sam' Wakefield's House and Ground last night for £350. I gave her a Gazette that related her Husband's Knighthood, which she had not seen before; and wish'd this success might not hinder her passage to a greater and better estate. She gave me a cup of good Beer and thank'd me for my visit."
Sir William would have still another try at the wreck, and this time there was no lack of ships and patronage. A squadron was fitted out in command of Sir John Narborough, and one of the company was the Duke of Albemarle. They made their way to the reef, but the remainder of the treasure had been lifted, and the expedition sailed home empty-handed. Adderley of New Providence had babbled in his cups and one of his men had been bribed to take a party of Bermuda wreckers to the reef. The place was soon swarming with all sorts of craft, some of them from Jamaica and Hispaniola, and they found a large amount of silver before they stripped the wreck clean.
The King offered Sir William a place as one of the Commissioners of the Royal Navy, but he was homesick for New England and desired to be a person of consequence in his own land. His friends obtained for him a patent as High Sheriff of Massachusetts and he returned to Boston after five years' absence "to entertain his Lady with some accomplishment of his predictions; and then built himself a fair brick house in the very place which was foretold."
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 butternuts. "North Boston" was then the fashionable 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 Massachusetts 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 assassinated in the face of the sun, before his own door."
This rough ship carpenter and treasure seeker weathered the storm and rose so high in the good graces of the throne that in 1692 he carried to Massachusetts 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 lusty quarrel after another. In nowise ashamed of his humble beginnings, he gave a dinner to his old friends of the Boston ship-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."