USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 12
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the most considerate and judicious of the royal Governors - as Shirley and Pownall - found it a most ungracious task to reinspire loyalty and a regard for foreign, disused, and discredited precedents into the breasts of those who for two generations had enjoyed a wild growth of independency. The people had learned that the most agreeable and the least objectionable way of being governed was that of governing themselves. Very naturally this feeling was cherished most strongly among the free husbandmen who lived most remote from Boston, and who were wholly removed from the wiles of royal officials and mere traders. There are marked tokens of this survival and exercise of the full spirit of the old independence in the country mem- bers of the House of Representatives. Indeed, the assertion of it broke the previous allowed usage by which towns might be represented by non-resi- dents, and required that their representatives should be chosen from among their own townsmen.
We are led to ask, What were the qualifications of a royal Governor of Massachusetts? - what sort of a man was required ; and what kind of service was he expected to render, directly to the Crown or indirectly to the people over whom he was set? We may dispose summarily of the matter last sug- gested, for it can hardly be conceived that the real welfare and prosperity of the colony, or the benefit or gratification of its inhabitants, was to any . considerable extent had in view in the new form of government. Four of the ten Governors, - Phips, Dudley, Belcher, and Hutchinson, - as has been said, were natives of New England, and may be supposed to have been commissioned to office by the king because of that fact, and the inference that they would best understand the interests of the Province, and would be most acceptable in humoring the feelings of its people. But of these Phips, Dudley, and Hutchinson proved to be the least successful and the most odious in their administration, and the least happy in their personal ex- perience in office. Neither one of the whole ten found the office in its conditions or in its discharge to be an agreeable one; no one of them had a wholly placid administration, or escaped being made a subject of complaints sent over to the king. It is to be borne in mind, as a key to all our history as a dependency of the realm of England, that the relation itself was in fact unsubstantial, undefined, unintelligible, and therefore practically unmanage- able and unreal. There was no foundation for it in the necessities of the case or in the reason of things. We did not need to have a governor and other officials sent to us from across the water, as we had passed the most critical period of exposure, and had firmly rooted our prosperity by our own resources, by native talents, and statesmanship. Amid their earliest risks and straits and perils the colonists had scrupulously and proudly exer- cised their utmost caution as to allowing any foreign intervention in their affairs, or being beholden for any royal favor beyond that of the old charter. Generally with a formal courtesy, but sometimes with a stiff and complacent assurance, they had signified, when challenged or threatened as to their doings, that they understood and felt perfectly capable of managing their
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THE ROYAL GOVERNORS OF MASSACHUSETTS, ETC.
own affairs, while their friends in the Old World must necessarily be quite uninformed about them. There was no good reason to be given why the local legislation of a competent representative body of the people, well prac- tised in the business, should be transmitted to England, act by act, to await, while in temporary force for three years, the royal approval or disallowance. Neither our security nor our prosperity required anything of the sort. If, beginning with the day of hard, small things, the exiles to this wilderness and their children, by their own toil and wisdom, at their own cost and risk, without ever asking guidance or assistance from England, and always re- pudiating its interference, had succeeded in establishing here a flourishing Commonwealth, tested by sixty years of trial, what possible emergency or use could, at the end of that period, call for the interposition and supremacy here of Crown officials? The appliance was supererogatory; it was med- dlesome, and necessarily mischievous. Of course, this is from the point of view of those most concerned in the matter.
This fundamental fact that we did not need and had no use for royal Governors makes it very difficult for us to conceive, from our point of view, what sort of men were suited to fill an office for which there was no call and no functions. The office, then, and those who were to fill it were to be judged and estimated in intent and qualifications solely with regard to the purposes and interests of the foreign administration. From the king's point of view it was plain that the office was needed as a sort of guardian- ship over the colonists, to bring them into an allegiance such as they had really never recognized, and to turn them to some better account of interest or profit to the realm than they had heretofore served. Such being the exactions of the office, men were needed to fill it who would uphold the prerogatives of the Crown; who would put themselves into a firm attitude against what might be regarded as disloyal or having a tendency to inde- pendence. The more satisfactorily and effectually high officials would serve those ends was the first consideration in their commission. Then, in the second place, no doubt the more amiably and discreetly this could be done with regard to the people to be governed, the better would the official be suited to his place. The temptation, of course, would be the beguilement of weak and complaisant men into officious and calculating subservience to the appointing power. An eye to personal emolument might doubtless be kept open by some who sought the office. Royal officials in the West Indies were in several cases enriched by the use alike of fair and unfair opportuni- ties. But the wool here was too short for plucking.
We may next ask, What were the attractions of the office of a Provincial Governor of Massachusetts, offering inducements for seeking and exercising it? No one who had it proffered to him seems to have declined it, though it does not appear that there was ever much zeal or pressure manifested in any rivalry to obtain it. . Probably Colonel Burgess, who sold out his commission for the consideration of a thousand pounds before he had assumed his gov- ernment, realized more direct profit from it than did any one who administered VOL. II. - 5.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the office. There might have been attached to it hopes and prospects, which however were never fulfilled, of rewards and fees and official dignities. Pos- sibly Governor Hutchinson, - but if he, only he, - through the business op- erations of his relatives, as Bancroft calls him " a smuggler," turned his royal offices to profit. All the other Governors professed that they were impover- ished by the trust. Probably no one of them found satisfaction in the dis- charge of it, or, in yielding it up, failed to regret having ever held it. The superfluousness and unreality of the Crown prerogative here affected all who were concerned in it. Cotton Mather, a good judge in the case, in a letter to Richards, wrote truly, "Massachusetts had proved a burdensome stone, and a break-neck unto them that have sought the ruin of it." And this " seeking the ruin of it " was simply synonymous with the doing anything to cross the will of the people in advising and acting for themselves.
Nearly all of the ten royal Governors, together with all the other burdens of office, had on their hands the conduct, in whole or in part, of one of the five great conflicts and struggles under which the almost continuous warfare with the French and their Indian allies is parted out and distributed, for the sake of distinguishing its stages, or its more signal encounters and disasters. Those of the Governors who had not a prominent part in these campaigns, as well as those most heavily tasked by them, had each a full equivalent in some special vexation or controversy springing from his representation of royal authority over a people who fretted under it, and in heart felt that they ought to be wholly free of it. These specific vexations and controver- sies were somewhat fairly distributed among the successive chief magistrates set over an unwilling and restive people; but they finally crowded all to- gether upon the last two of them, - Bernard and Hutchinson. The chief of the larger of these matters of contention and bickering had reference to the King's command that his subjects in Massachusetts should settle a liberal and regular salary on his Governor. This, his said subjects decided from the first that they would not do; and notwithstanding all the pleading and cajoling, the advising and the commanding and the threatening, they never did do it. The implication was that the officer in question, being the King's servant, ought to look to his master for his wages. As the people did not want him, had no use for him, and would at any time have gladly been rid of him, it seemed to them a piece of clear effrontery in him to read to them the royal instructions that those wages should be paid from their treasury. Yet so strangely do the development of circumstances and the change in the relations of things alter the matters and the phases of con- troversy, that it came about that one of the last of the quarrels between the Governor and the aforesaid subjects concerned the fact that the King did undertake to pay wages to his Governor. The subjects then protested against it. What right, they asked, had the King to keep in his pay an officer here to intermeddle with our affairs, while we were perfectly willing to compensate him according to our own judgment for any appreciable service performed by him? Between that first and that last phase of the
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THE ROYAL GOVERNORS OF MASSACHUSETTS, ETC.
controversy about a salary came in such matters of contention as these, - the assumed right of the royal Governor to negative the choice of a Speaker by the House of Representatives; his right or theirs as to adjournment and the selection of a place other than Boston for holding the legislature; as to the appointment of days for Fasting and Thanksgiving; as to matters regulating the currency ; as to the calling of military officers to account, and auditing their disbursements; as to the right of the Governor to quarter troops on the town, or in the Castle, etc.
These are some of the specific points of contention and alienation, by which successively, in changing issues but in ever increasing aggravations of temper, the King's governors were compelled to stand for his prerogative while the people stood for theirs. The story is an exciting one, and the moral which runs through it is that it concerns a forced and unsuccessful arrest of the independency in government with which Massachusetts began, and with the renewed assertion of which she triumphed in her long pre- liminary struggle with the Crown and Ministry of Great Britain, - first, as it was phrased, for the rights of Englishmen, and then for the fuller im- munities and independence of men.
Only with brevity can we now rehearse the successive administrations of the ten acting royal Governors of this Province.
The most picturesque and remarkable in character and personal fortune of all these royal functionaries was the first of them, Sir William Phips, - a characteristic product of the New England soil, times, and ways. Hutch- inson thus briefly and fitly designates him: "He was an honest man; but by a series of fortunate incidents, rather than by any uncommon talents, he rose from the lowest condition in life to be the first man in the country." Let us trace him between those extremes. William Phips - it is note- worthy under the circumstances that he had a Christian or a given name, instead of being designated by a number - was one of twenty-one sons and of twenty-six children of the same mother, born to James Phips, a black- smith, or gunsmith, who was an early settler in the woods of Maine, near the mouth of the Kennebec. The tale about this excess of children is told by Cotton Mather, who had means of correct information where his love of the marvellous did not mislead him. But records and history are dumb as to any fact about the most of these scions of a fruitful parentage other than that of their having been born. William having come to the light, Feb. 2, 1651, was left in early childhood without a father. What the mother's task was, in poverty, with hard wilderness surroundings of bears, wolves, and sav- ages, we may well imagine. Her famous son, untaught and ignorant, tended sheep till he was eighteen years of age. Then he helped to build coasters, and sailed in them. This was at the time and afterward a most thriving business, the foundation of fortunes to rugged and enterprising men born in indigence. A good story of the period illustrates the activity and profit of ship-building on the Maine coast. A skipper had appeared from there
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
at an English port with cargoes, in three successive years respectively, in a schooner, a brig, and finally a large ship. On being rallied about the rapid increase of his vessel, as if it had grown while crossing the seas, he replied that they built ship-stuff down east in lengths, and sawed sections of it off at pleasure, according to the voyage! Young Phips had early visions of suc-
SIR WILLIAM PHIPS.I
1 ['This portrait is, by his kind permission, taken from a painting belonging to the Honora- ble Francis B. Hayes, which this gentleman ac- quired from the collection of the late Thomas Thompson, by whom it was held to be a portrait of Phips. The manuscript in his hand is marked on the painting " W. P." Its further history is not given. An alleged likeness of Phips on a dilapidated canvas was for some years in this city in the possession of Miss E. B. Blackstone, but is now believed to be in Bangor. (See Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc., November, 1870, and February, 1876.) The authenticity of this last is doubted in Sewall Papers, i. 204. The Heraldic Journal, i. 47, 152, says that the arms now to be seen on a tomb in the old burying ground at Charles- town, marked "David Wood, 1762," are those of Phips, to whom the tomb originally belonged. Phips's Life is one of those given by Cotton Mather in the Magnalia ; and Professor Francis Bowen has in later years contributed one to Sparks's American Biography. - ED.]
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cess and greatness. He came to Boston in 1673, at the age of twenty-two, worked at his trade, and learned for the first time to read, and also to do something that passed for writing. He married a widow, older than himself, who had had property, but had lost much of it. They suffered straits together ; but he used to comfort her with the assurance that they would yet have "a fair brick house in the Green Lane of North Boston." And so they did. That "Green Lane" became Charter Street, when, in 1692, he came back as Sir William Phips from the Court of London, bringing the Province Charter as the first Governor under it. Many citizens still living will remember his " fair brick house," as it long served as an Asylum for boys at the corner of Salem and Charter streets.1
But a strange, wild, daring, and romantic interval of adventure preceded his honors and his wealth. He wrought at intervals in Maine, and here, as a ship-carpenter, sailed as a lumberer and coaster, and engaged in expedi- tions against the Indians. In 1684, - a dark time for Massachusetts, - his visions took in a search in the waters of the Spanish main for a trea- sure-ship known to be sunken there. Going to London, he had the address so to commend himself to the Admiralty and James II. as to obtain the use and command of an eighteen-gun ship of ninety-five men. Possibly the king entrusted to him, besides the search for the sunken treasure, some other business on the high seas of a sort not to be entered on papers. A two years' cruise in the West Indies, in which he showed a most signal in- trepidity, heroism, and ingenuity of resource in suppressing a mutinous crew, was unsuccessful, except in acquainting him, through an old Spaniard, near Port de la Plata, of the precise spot where a treasure-laden galleon had foundered nearly fifty years before. He returned to England for a new out- fit. The king favored him, but not with another war-ship. The Duke of Albemarle and others, as associates, provided him with a vessel on shares. The hero had heroic success. Espying the rock-imbedded prize, deep in the clear waters, he fished up its bullion ballast to the value of more than a million and a half of dollars in gold and silver, and also diamonds, pre- cious stones and other treasures. His own share in the proceeds was about a hundred thousand dollars. To this was added the honor of knighthood, and a gold cup for Lady Phips of the value of five thousand dollars.
He returned home in the capacity of high-sheriff under Andros, who did not want him, for Phips was utterly ignorant of law, and could not write legibly. He soon made another voyage to England, and returning to Boston built the " fair brick house " of his vision, engaged in a successful military expedition against Acadia, and took and plundered Port Royal and other French settlements, indulging in some very questionable proceedings. He then instigated and conducted as commander a naval expedition against Quebec, which proved a disastrous and humiliating failure.2 Returning once more to England, he was at hand to aid President Mather in his agency to secure a new Charter, with which, as the first commissioned Governor
1 [See the Introduction to this volume. - ED.] 2 [See Colonel Higginson's chapter. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
under it, he came back to Boston, May 14, 1692, with the Agent, who was his friend and pastor.1 The appointment no doubt was regarded as, in in- tention, conciliatory toward the anxieties and apprehensions of the people of the Province, and it was supposed that it would be gratifying to them. There was, however, something trifling and farcical in this attempt to initiate a new order of things, involving risky experiments, under the lead of an illiterate mechanic, utterly unskilled in legal and administrative affairs, a rough sea- man and a man of uncontrollable temper. An additional and very strong distaste was felt by many for his appointment because it was inferred that, owing his advancement to the Mathers, they would be the managing power behind him; and there was an earnest wish and purpose to break down their then too predominating influence. Yet after Phips had risen to these high honors he showed no poor pride, and often alluded to his lowly origin. He gave his fellow ship-carpenters a dinner in Boston ; and when borne down by public distractions, would wish himself back to his broad-axe again. He was pure in morals, upright in his dealings, and owed his success in life to his own energy and prowess. He tried, without much avail, to improve his handwriting and spelling, and as a help to control his hot temper he became a communicant in the Church of the Mathers, giving the required relation of his religious experience. All incompetent as he was for the stern exigency, he liad to meet the appalling outburst of the Witchcraft delusion, with its spell of horrors. For this purpose he constituted - with a neglect of constitutional legal forms - a Special Court of Oyer and Terminer. During the greater part of the proceedings of this court he was absent at the eastward in an expedition against the Indians, and engaged in building a fort at Pemaquid. When he returned to Boston he found that even his own wife had been " cried out upon " as a witch, and he at once put a stay upon the fatuous proceedings.2 He was not fitted for his office, though in the main well-disposed. His weak and troubled course lasted during the whole of his brief administration of two and a half years. He had Boston dept 8 th,692. a street-broil with and knocked down Captain Short, of the " Nonesuch" frigate, and a similar pugilistic encounter with Brenton, the collector of the customs. Judge Sewall wrote in his Diary, un- der date, "Nov. 1, 1694. Captain Dob- bins refusing to give bail, the sheriff was taking him to prison, and Sir William Phips rescued him, and told the sheriff he would send him, the sheriff, to prison, if he touched him; which occasioned very warm discourse between
1 [The Charter had passed the seals, Oct. 7, 1691 .- ED.] 2 [See Mr. Poole's chapter .- ED.]
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THE ROYAL GOVERNORS OF MASSACHUSETTS, ETC.
him and the lieut .- governor " [Stoughton]. Becoming very unpopular, Phips was complained of and summoned to England; whither he went, Nov. 17, 1694, carrying with him an appeal from just a majority of the House that he might retain his office. Being prosecuted before the court he was devising schemes for his relief, when he died suddenly, Feb. 18, 1695, aged forty-five years.1 Phips's widow married the rich merchant, Peter Sergeant, who built and occupied the stately mansion afterward purchased by the Province as a residence for the Governor, and known as the Province House. Mr. Sergeant became a man of great weight and influence as a councillor. A nephew of Phips, who was childless, adopted by him, took his surname, and, as Spencer Phips, was Lieut .- Governor between 1733 and 1757.
The following is the inscription on Governor Phips's monument in the Church of St. Mary, Woolnoth, London : -
"Near this place is interred the body of Sir William Phipps, Knight, who in the year 1687, by his great industry, discovered among the rocks near the Banks of Bahama, on the North side of Hispaniola, a Spanish Plate-Ship, which had been under water 44 years, out of which he took in Gold and Silver to the value of £300,- 000 Sterling ; and with a Fidelity equal to his conduct, brought it all to London, where it was divided between himself and the rest of the Adventurers : for which great ser- vice he was knighted by his then Majesty, James II., and afterward, by the command of his present Majesty, and at the request of the Principal Inhabitants of New Eng- land, he accepted of the Government of the Massachusetts, in which he continued to the time of his Death, and discharged his Trust with that zeal for the interest of his Country, and with so little regard to his own private Advantage, that he justly gained the good Esteem and Affection of the greatest and best part of the Inhabitants of that Colony. His Lady, to perpetuate his Memory, hath caused this Monument to be erected."
During Phips's administration the composition and character of the Council had greatly changed from those which the king's nominations had given to it, and had contained more popular elements. The old stern Puritan magistrate and chief-justice, William Stoughton, whom the king had commissioned, under the Charter, to his old office of lieut .- governor, assumed the vacant chair of the Governor, which he occupied nearly four years, till May 26, 1699, when it was again filled. It might seem as if the transition between the old and the new régime in Massachusetts had been made under such favorable circumstances, through the familiar personalities of Phips and Stoughton, that the people would have hardly been conscious of the change in their form of government. In fact, the change had been so facilitated in this respect, that it was very much relieved of a revolution- ary or startling character. There was a cheerful effort, in the renewal of the
1 [A fac-simile of the invitation, plentifully garnished with death's heads, to Phips's funeral in London, having been given in the Proceedings of the Historical Society, is reduced in Bryant and Gay's United States, iii. 109. The news of his
death reached Boston, May 5, - "at which the people are generally sad," says Sewall; and the next day, "the mourning guns are fired at the Castle and Town." See Sewall Papers, i. 404. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
old routine in the towns, to gather up the fragments, and to find the ever excellent solace and security of an excited people in industry. But none the less must the strong and stiff old Stoughton have felt the difference between standing among the foremost, as he had done in the colonial period, in sensitiveness to any reminder of accountability across the water, and being the reluctant representative here of that foreign dictation and surveillance.
Stoughton had on his hands a war with the allied French and Savages, in which our settlements as close to the capital as Haverhill, Groton, and the Huguenot colony in Worcester County were desolated. Nor did the treaty of Ryswick, Sept. 20, 1697, stop this warfare, as the news of it was not received here until the following May; and the result was only to sup- press the open agency of the French in it, while it was believed that they countenanced the continuance of hostilities against us by the Savages. In this woful ten years of conflict, it was estimated that at least a thousand of the English had been killed or carried captive into Canada.
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