One of his bills of lading, dated 1707, shows the pious imprint of his generation and the kind of commerce in which he was engaged. It reads in part:
“Shipped by the Grace of God, in good order and well conditioned, by Sam’ll Browne, Phillip English, Capt. Wm. Bowditch, Wm. Pickering, and Sam’ll Wakefield, in and upon the Good sloop called the Mayflower whereof is master under God for this present voyage Jno. Swasey, and now riding at anchor in the harbor of Salem, and by God’s Grace bound for Virginia or Merriland. To say, twenty hogshats of Salt.... In witness whereof the Master or Purser of the said Sloop has affirmed to Two Bills of Lading ... and so God send the Good Sloop to her desired port in Safety. Amen.”
Another merchant of Philip English’s time wrote in 1700 of the foreign commerce of Salem:
“Dry Merchantable codfish for the Markets of Spain and Portugal and the Straits. Refuse fish, lumber, horses and provisions for the West Indies. Returns made directly hence to England are sugar, molasses, cotton, wool and logwood for which we depend on the West Indies. Our own produce, a considerable quantity of whale and fish oil, whalebone, furs, deer, elk and bear skins are annually sent to England. We have much Shipping here and freights are low.”
The Roger Williams house, built before 1635. Tradition asserts that preliminary examinations of those accused of witchcraft in 1692 were held here.
(This photograph was made before a drug store was built in front of the house, and shows an old “town pump”)
To Virginia the clumsy, little sloops and ketches of Philip English carried “Molasses, Rum, Salt, Cider, Mackerel, Wooden Bowls, Platters, Pails, Kegs, Muscavado Sugar, and Codfish and brought back to Salem Wheat, Pork, Tobacco, Furs, Hides, old Pewter, Old Iron, Brass, Copper, Indian Corn and English Goods.” The craft which crossed the Atlantic and made the West Indies in safety to pile up wealth for Philip English were no larger than those sloops and schooners which ply up and down the Hudson River to-day. Their masters made their way without sextant or “Practical Navigator,” and as an old writer has described in a somewhat exaggerated vein:
“Their skippers kept their reckoning with chalk on a shingle, which they stowed away in the binnacle; and by way of observation they held up a hand to the sun. When they got him over four fingers they knew they were straight for Hole-in-the-Wall; three fingers gave them their course to the Double-headed Shop Key and two carried them down to Barbados.”
The witchcraft frenzy invaded even the stately home of Philip English, the greatest shipowner of early Salem. His wife, a proud and aristocratic lady, was “cried against,” examined and committed to prison in Salem. It is said that she was considered haughty and overbearing in her manner toward the poor, and that her husband’s staunch adherence to the Church of England had something to do with her plight. At any rate, Mary English was arrested in her bedchamber and refused to rise, wherefore “guards were placed around the house and in the morning she attended the devotions of her family, kissed her children with great composure, proposed her plan for their education, took leave of them and then told the officer she was ready to die.” Alas, poor woman, she had reason to be “persuaded that accusation was equal to condemnation.” She lay in prison six weeks where “her firmness was memorable. But being visited by a fond husband, her husband was also accused and confined in prison.” The intercession of friends and the plea that the prison was overcrowded caused their removal to Arnold’s jail in Boston until the time of trial. It brings to mind certain episodes of the French Reign of Terror to learn that they were taken to Boston on the same day with Giles Corey, George Jacobs, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, and Bridget Bishop, all of whom perished except Philip and Mary English. Both would have been executed had they not escaped death by flight from the Boston jail and seeking refuge in New York.