Few of the personages of past times (except such as have gained renown
in fireside legends as well as in written history) are anything more
than mere names to their successors. They seldom stand up in our
imaginations like men. The knowledge communicated by the historian and
biographer is analogous to that which we acquire of a country by the
map,--minute, perhaps, and accurate, and available for all necessary
purposes, but cold and naked, and wholly destitute of the mimic charm
produced by landscape-painting. These defects are partly remediable,
and even without an absolute violation of literal truth, although by
methods rightfully interdicted to professors of biographical exactness.
A license must be assumed in brightening the materials which time has
rusted, and in tracing out half-obliterated inscriptions on the columns
of antiquity: Fancy must throw her reviving light on the faded incidents
that indicate character, whence a ray will be reflected, more or less
vividly, on the person to be described. The portrait of the ancient
governor whose name stands at the head of this article will owe any
interest it may possess, not to his internal self, but to certain
peculiarities of his fortune. These must be briefly noticed.
The birth and early life of Sir William Phips were rather an
extraordinary prelude to his subsequent distinction. He was one of
the twenty-six children of a gunsmith, who exercised his trade--where
hunting and war must have given it a full encouragement--in a small
frontier settlement near the mouth of the river Kennebec. Within the
boundaries of the Puritan provinces, and wherever those governments
extended an effectual sway, no depth nor solitude of the wilderness
could exclude youth from all the common opportunities of moral, and far
more than common ones of religious education. Each settlement of the
Pilgrims was a little piece of the Old World inserted into the New. It
was like Gideon's fleece, unwet with dew: the desert wind that breathed
over it left none of its wild influences there. But the first settlers
of Maine and New Hampshire were led thither entirely by carnal motives:
their governments were feeble, uncertain, sometimes nominally annexed to
their sister colonies, and sometimes asserting a troubled independence.
Their rulers might be deemed, in more than one instance, lawless
adventurers, who found that security in the forest which they had
forfeited in Europe. Their clergy (unlike that revered band who
acquired so singular a fame elsewhere in New England) were too often
destitute of the religious fervor which should have kept them in the
track of virtue, unaided by the restraints of human law and the dread of
worldly dishonor; and there are records of lamentable lapses on the part
of those holy men, which, if we may argue the disorder of the sheep from
the unfitness of the shepherd, tell a sad tale as to the morality of the
eastern provinces. In this state of society, the future governor grew
up; and many years after, sailing with a fleet and an army to make war
upon the French, he pointed out the very hills where he had reached the
age of manhood, unskilled even to read and write. The contrast between
the commencement and close of his life was the effect of casual
circumstances. During a considerable time, he was a mariner, at a
period when there was much license on the high-seas. After attaining to
some rank in the English navy, he heard of an ancient Spanish wreck off
the coast of Hispaniola, of such mighty value, that, according to the
stories of the day, the sunken gold might be seen to glisten, and the
diamonds to flash, as the triumphant billows tossed about their spoil.
These treasures of the deep (by the aid of certain noblemen, who claimed
the lion's share) Sir William Phips sought for, and recovered, and was
sufficiently enriched, even after an honest settlement with the partners
of his adventure. That the land might give him honor, as the sea had
given him wealth, he received knighthood from King James. Returning to
New England, he professed repentance of his sins (of which, from the
nature both of his early and more recent life, there could scarce fail
to be some slight accumulation), was baptized, and, on the accession of
the Prince of Orange to the throne, became the first governor under the
second charter. And now, having arranged these preliminaries, we shall
attempt to picture forth a day of Sir William's life, introducing no
very remarkable events, because history supplies us with none such
convertible to our purpose.
It is the forenoon of a day in summer, shortly after the governor's
arrival; and he stands upon his doorsteps, preparatory to a walk through
the metropolis. Sir William is a stout man, an inch or two below the
middle size, and rather beyond the middle point of life. His dress is
of velvet,--a dark purple, broadly embroidered; and his sword-hilt and
the lion's head of his cane display specimens of the gold from the
Spanish wreck. On his head, in the fashion of the court of Louis XIV.,
is a superb full-bottomed periwig, amid whose heap of ringlets his face
shows like a rough pebble in the setting that befits a diamond. Just
emerging from the door are two footmen,--one an African slave of shining
ebony, the other an English bond-servant, the property of the governor
for a term of years. As Sir William comes down the steps, he is met by
three elderly gentlemen in black, grave and solemn as three tombstones
on a ramble from the burying-ground. These are ministers of the town,
among whom we recognize Dr. Increase Mather, the late provincial agent
at the English court, the author of the present governor's appointment,
and the right arm of his administration. Here follow many bows and a
deal of angular politeness on both sides. Sir William professes his
anxiety to re-enter the house, and give audience to the reverend
gentlemen: they, on the other hand, cannot think of interrupting his
walk; and the courteous dispute is concluded by a junction of the
parties; Sir William and Dr. Mather setting forth side by side, the two
other clergymen forming the centre of the column, and the black and
white footmen bringing up the rear. The business in hand relates to the
dealings of Satan in the town of Salem. Upon this subject, the
principal ministers of the province have been consulted; and these three
eminent persons are their deputies, commissioned to express a doubtful
opinion, implying, upon the whole, an exhortation to speedy and vigorous
measures against the accused. To such councils, Sir William, bred in
the forest and on the ocean, and tinctured with the superstition of
both, is well inclined to listen.
As the dignitaries of Church and State make their way beneath the
overhanging houses, the lattices are thrust ajar, and you may discern,
just in the boundaries of light and shade, the prim faces of the little
Puritan damsels, eying the magnificent governor, and envious of the
bolder curiosity of the men. Another object of almost equal interest
now appears in the middle of the way. It is a man clad in a hunting-shirt
and Indian stockings, and armed with a long gun. His feet have
been wet with the waters of many an inland lake and stream; and the
leaves and twigs of the tangled wilderness are intertwined with his
garments: on his head he wears a trophy which we would not venture to
record without good evidence of the fact,--a wig made of the long and
straight black hair of his slain savage enemies. This grim old heathen
stands bewildered in the midst of King Street. The governor regards him
attentively, and, recognizing a playmate of his youth, accosts him with
a gracious smile, inquires as to the prosperity of their birthplace, and
the life or death of their ancient neighbors, and makes appropriate
remarks on the different stations allotted by fortune to two individuals
born and bred beside the same wild river. Finally he puts into his
hand, at parting, a shilling of the Massachusetts coinage, stamped with
the figure of a stubbed pine-tree, mistaken by King Charles for the
oak which saved his royal life. Then all the people praise the humility
and bountifulness of the good governor, who struts onward flourishing
his gold-headed cane; while the gentleman in the straight black wig is
left with a pretty accurate idea of the distance between himself and his
old companion. Meantime, Sir William steers his course towards the town
dock. A gallant figure is seen approaching on the opposite side of the
street, in a naval uniform profusely laced, and with a cutlass swinging
by his side. This is Captain Short, the commander of a frigate in the
service of the English king, now lying in the harbor. Sir William
bristles up at sight of him, and crosses the street with a lowering
front, unmindful of the hints of Dr. Mather, who is aware of an
unsettled dispute between the captain and the governor, relative to the
authority of the latter over a king's ship on the provincial station.
Into this thorny subject, Sir William plunges headlong. The captain
makes answer with less deference than the dignity of the potentate
requires: the affair grows hot; and the clergymen endeavor to interfere
in the blessed capacity of peacemakers. The governor lifts his cane;
and the captain lays his hand upon his sword, but is prevented from
drawing by the zealous exertions of Dr. Mather. There is a furious
stamping of feet, and a mighty uproar from every mouth, in the midst of
which his Excellency inflicts several very sufficient whacks on the head
of the unhappy Short. Having thus avenged himself by manual force, as
befits a woodman and a mariner, he vindicates the insulted majesty of
the governor by committing his antagonist to prison. This done, Sir
William removes his periwig, wipes away the sweat of the encounter, and
gradually composes himself, giving vent, to a few oaths, like the
subsiding ebullitions of a pot that has boiled over.
It being now near twelve o'clock, the three ministers are bidden to
dinner at the governor's table, where the party is completed by a few
Old Charter senators,--men reared at the feet of the Pilgrims, and who
remember the days when Cromwell was a nursing-father to New England.
Sir William presides with commendable decorum till grace is said, and
the cloth removed. Then, as the grape-juice glides warm into the
ventricles of his heart, it produces a change, like that of a running
stream upon enchanted shapes; and the rude man of the sea and wilderness
appears in the very chair where the stately governor sat down. He
overflows with jovial tales of the forecastle and of his father's hut,
and stares to see the gravity of his guests become more and more
portentous in exact proportion as his own merriment increases. A noise
of drum and fife fortunately breaks up the session.
The governor and his guests go forth, like men bound upon some grave
business, to inspect the trainbands of the town. A great crowd of
people is collected on the common, composed of whole families, from the
hoary grandsire to the child of three years. All ages and both sexes
look with interest on the array of their defenders; and here and there
stand a few dark Indians in their blankets, dull spectators of the
strength that has swept away their race. The soldiers wear a proud and
martial mien, conscious that beauty will reward them with her approving
glances; not to mention that there are a few less influential motives to
contribute to keep up an heroic spirit, such as the dread of being made
to "ride the wooden horse" (a very disagreeable mode of equestrian
exercise,--hard riding, in the strictest sense), or of being "laid neck
and heels," in a position of more compendiousness than comfort. Sir
William perceives some error in their tactics, and places himself with
drawn sword at their head. After a variety of weary evolutions, evening
begins to fall, like the veil of gray and misty years that have rolled
betwixt that warlike band and us. They are drawn into a hollow square,
the officers in the centre; and the governor (for John Dunton's
authority will bear us out in this particular) leans his hands upon his
sword-hilt, and closes the exercises of the day with a prayer.