twenty-two guns, and the Henry of London, a small frigate 

 of fifty tons with ten guns. Phips commanded the James 

 and Mary. He placed the frigate under the command of 

 Francis Rogers, who had been his second mate on the Rose. 

 The two sliips had good salvaging equipment for their day, 

 and they carried a stock of goods for trade in the West 

 Indies ports, in case the quest for the treasure ship should 

 fail. 



Arriving at Puerto Plata, Phips lingered nearly a 

 month, preparing his equipment, putting aboard supplies 

 and trading; with the inhabitants. Duringr this time he and 

 his men constructed a periagua from a cottonwood tree, 

 so large that the finished boat would carry eight to ten 

 oarsmen. This craft, he figured, could be taken in close 

 to the reefs, where it would be too hazardous to risk his 

 sailing ships. 



On January 13, 1687, he sent Captain Rogers with the 

 Henry to search for the wreck on the banks some twenty 

 leagues to the north of Puerto Plata. The frigate was gone 

 nearly a month. Rogers returned to report in seeming de- 

 jection that they had failed once more to find their ob- 

 jective. But this was only his strange idea of humor. That 

 night, while he and Phips were sitting around the table, he 

 produced from beneath it a sow of silver worth two or 

 three hundied pounds. 



In reply to Phips's joyful questioning, he told of days 

 of fruitless searching with the small boats in the vicinity of 

 the "boylers" on the north bank of reefs. The Henry, mean- 

 while, was anchored about a mile and a half to the south 

 of the reefs in the deeper water of the banks. 



One wonders what they used for search in those days. 

 Did they have anything similar to the glass-bottomed 

 bucket which the Bahamian natives use today in hunting 

 for crawfish? If so, the crude glass of that day must have 

 made it difficult to see very clearly. Or did they send swim- 



The Silver Shoals 241 



