The treasure on board, Captain Phips had new trouble.  The men, seeing “such vast litters of silver sows and pigs come on board,” were not content with ordinary sailors’ pay.  They might even be tempted to seize the ship and take its rich lading for themselves.  Phips was in great apprehension.  He had not forgotten the conduct of his former crew.  He did his utmost to gain the friendship of his men, and promised them a handsome reward for their services, even if he had to give them all his own share.

England was reached in safety, and the kingdom electrified by the story of Captain Phips’s success.  The romantic incidents of the narrative attracted universal attention.  Phips was the hero of the hour.  Some of his enemies, it is true, did their utmost to make him a wronged hero.  They diligently sought to persuade James II., then on the throne, to seize the whole treasure as the appanage of the crown, and not be content with the tithe to which his prerogative entitled him.  James II. was tyrannical but not unjust.  He refused to rob the mariners.  “Captain Phips,” he said, “he saw to be a person of that honesty, ability, and fidelity that he should not want his countenance.”

Phips was certainly honest,—­so much so, indeed, that little of the treasure came to him.  His promises to his men were carefully kept; his employers were paid the last penny of their dues; in the end, out of the whole, there remained to himself less than sixteen thousand pounds.  The Duke of Albemarle, moved by admiration for his honesty, gave him, as a present from his wife, a gold cup of the value of nearly one thousand pounds.  As for the king, he was so pleased with the whole conduct of the adventurer, and perhaps so charmed by Phips’s silvery speech, that he conferred on him the honor of knighthood, and the plain Kennebec boy became Sir William Phips, and a member of the aristocracy of England.

Every one acknowledged that the discoverer owed his success to merit, not to luck.  He was evidently a man of the highest capacity, and might, had he chosen, have filled high places and gained great honors in England.  But America was his native land, and he was not to be kept from its shores.

He became such a favorite at court, that one day, when King James was particularly gracious to him, and asked him what favor he desired, he replied that he asked nothing for himself, but hoped that the king would restore to his native province its lost liberties, by returning the charter of which it had been deprived.

“Anything but that!” exclaimed James, who had no idea of restoring liberty to mother-land or colony.

He appointed Phips, however, high sheriff of New England, and the adventurer returned home as a man of power and station.  On his way there he visited the silver-ship again, and succeeded in adding something of value to his fortune.  Then, sailing to Boston, he rejoined his wife after a five years’ absence, and, to complete the realization of his predictions, immediately began to build himself a “fair brick house in Green Lane.”