William Phips’s first adventure had proved unprofitable except in works of charity.  But he was not one to be easily put down, having in his nature an abundance of the perilous stuff of ambition.  He was not the man to sit down and wait for fortune to come to him.  Rather, he belonged to those who go to seek fortune.  He was determined, he told his wife, to become captain of a king’s ship, and owner of a fair brick house in the Green Lane of North Boston.  It took him some eight or nine years to make good the first of these predictions, and then, in the year 1683, he sailed into the harbor of Boston as captain of the “Algier Rose,” a frigate of eighteen guns and ninety-five men.

It was by the magic wand of sunken silver that our hero achieved this success.  The treasures of Peru, loaded on Spanish ships, had not all reached the ports of Spain.  Some cargoes of silver had gone to the bottom of the Atlantic.  Phips had heard of such a wreck on the Bahamas, had sailed thither, and had made enough money by the enterprise to pay him for a voyage to England.  While in the Bahamas he had been told of another Spanish wreck, “wherein was lost a mighty treasure, hitherto undiscovered.”  It was this that took him to England.  He had made up his mind to be the discoverer of this sunken treasure-ship.  The idea took possession of him wholly.  His hope was to interest some wealthy persons, or the government itself, in his design.  The man must have had in him something of that silver-tongued eloquence which makes persuasion easy, for the royalties at Whitehall heard him with favor and support, and he came back to New England captain of a king’s ship, with full powers to search the seas for silver.

And now we have reached the verge of the romance of the life of William Phips.  He had before him a difficult task, but he possessed the qualities which enable men to meet and overcome difficulty.  The silver-ship was said to have been sunk somewhere near the Bahamas; the exact spot it was not easy to learn, for half a century had passed since its demise.  Sailing thither in the “Algier Rose,” Phips set himself to find the sunken treasure.  Here and there he dredged, using every effort to gain information, trying every spot available, ending now in disappointment, starting now with renewed hope, continuing with unflagging energy.  His frequent failures would have discouraged a common man, but Phips was not a common man, and would not accept defeat.

The resolute searcher had more than the difficulties of the sea-bottom to contend with.  His men lost hope, grew weary of unprofitable labor, and at last rose in mutiny They fancied that they saw their way clear to an easier method of getting silver, and marched with drawn cutlasses to the quarterdeck, where they bade their commander to give up his useless search and set sail for the South Seas.  There they would become pirates, and get silver without dredging or drudging.

It was a dangerous crisis.  Phips stood with empty hands before that crew of armed and reckless men.  Yet choler and courage proved stronger than sword-blades.  Roused to fury, he rushed upon the mutineers with bare hands, knocked them down till the deck was strewn with fallen bodies, and by sheer force of anger and fearlessness quelled the mutiny and forced the men to return to their duty.