SIR WILLIAM PHIPS AND THE SILVER-SHIP.

The story of a poor boy, born on the edge of the wilderness,—­“at a despicable plantation on the river of Kennebec, and almost the farthest village of the eastern settlement of New England,”—­yet who ended his life as governor and nobleman, is what we have to tell.  It is one of the most romantic stories in history.  He was born in 1651, being a scion of the early days of the Puritan colony.  He came of a highly prolific pioneer family,—­he had twenty brothers and five sisters,—­yet none but himself of this extensive family are heard of in history or biography.  Genius is too rare a quality to be spread through such a flock.  His father was a gunsmith.  Of the children, William was one of the youngest.  After his father’s death, he helped his mother at sheep-keeping in the wilderness till he was eighteen years of age, then there came “an unaccountable impulse upon his mind that he was born to greater matters.”  The seed of genius planted in his nature was beginning to germinate.

The story of the early life of William Phips may be told in a few words.  From sheep-tending he turned to carpentry, becoming an expert ship-carpenter.  With this trade at his fingers’ ends he went to Boston, and there first learned to read and write, accomplishments which had not penetrated to the Kennebec.  His next step was to marry, his wife being a widow, a Mrs. Hull, with little money but good connections.  She lifted our carpenter a step higher in the social scale.  At that time, says his biographer, “he was one tall beyond the common set of men, and thick as well as tall, and strong as well as thick; exceedingly robust, and able to conquer such difficulties of diet and of travel as would have killed most men alive.  He was of a very comely though a very manly countenance,” and in character of “a most incomparable generosity.”  He hated anything small or mean, was somewhat choleric, but not given to nourish malice.

[Illustration:  Pond island, mouth of the Kennebec.]

To this notable young man there soon came an adventure.  He had become a master workman, and built a ship for some Boston merchants on the river Sheepscote, a few leagues from his native Kennebec.  The vessel was finished, and ready to be loaded with lumber; but its first cargo proved to be very different from that which Phips had designed.  For Indians attacked the settlement; the inhabitants, flying for their lives, crowded on board the vessel, and Phips set sail with a shipload of his old friends and neighbors, who could pay him only in thanks.  It is not unlikely that some of his own brothers and sisters were among the rescued.  Certainly the extensive family of Phips must have spread somewhat widely over the coast region of Maine.