1690.] SIR WILLIAM PHIPS. 241 



him will not be amiss. He is said to have been 

 one of twenty-six children, all of the same mother, 

 and was born in 1650 at a rude border settlement, 

 since called Woolwich, on the Kennebec. His 

 parents were ignorant and poor ; and till eighteen 

 years of age he was employed in keeping sheep. 

 Such a life ill suited his active and ambitious 

 nature. To better his condition, he learned the 

 trade of ship-carpenter, and, in the exercise of it, 

 came to Boston, where he married a widow with 

 some property, beyond him in years, and much 

 above him in station. About this time, he learned 

 to read and write, though not too well, for his sig- 

 nature is like that of a peasant. Still aspiring to 

 greater things, he promised his wife that he would 

 one clay command a king's ship and own a " fair 

 brick house in the Green Lane of North Boston," 

 a quarter then occupied by citizens of the better 

 class. He kept his word at both points. Fortune 

 was inauspicious to him for several years ; till at 

 length, under the pressure of reverses, he conceived 

 the idea of conquering fame and wealth at one 

 stroke, by fishing up the treasure said to be stored in 

 a Spanish galleon wrecked fifty years before some- 

 where in the West Indian seas. Full of this project, 

 he went to England, where, through influences which 

 do not plainly appear, he gained a hearing from 

 persons in high places, and induced the admiralty 

 to adopt his scheme. A frigate was given him, 

 and he sailed for the West Indies ; whence, after a 

 long search, he returned unsuccessful, though not 

 without adventures which proved his mettle. It 



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