g persistence he held to his purpose
month after month, until almost a year had passed. At length, through
the friends he had made at Court, he gained the ear of Charles II, and
that gay monarch was pleased to take a fling at treasure hunting as a
sporting proposition, with an eye also to a share of the plunder.

He gave Phips a frigate of the king's navy, the _Rose_ of eighteen guns
and ninety-five men, which had been captured from the Algerine
corsairs. As "Captain of a King's Ship," he recruited a crew of all
sorts, mostly hard characters, and sailed from London in September,
1683, bound first to Boston, and thence to find the treasure. Alas,
for the cloak of piety with which Cotton Mather covered William Phips
from head to heels. Other accounts show convincingly that he was a
bullying, profane, and godless sea dog, yet honest withal, and as brave
as a lion, an excellent man to have at your elbow in a tight pinch, or
to be in charge of the quarter-deck in a gale of wind. The real Phips
is a more likeable character than the stuffed image that Cotton Mather
tried to make of him.

While in Boston harbor in the _Rose_, Captain Phips carried things with
a high hand. Another skipper had got wind of the treasure and was
about to make sail for the West Indies in a ship called the _Good
Intent_. Phips tried to bluff him, then to frighten him, and finally
struck a partnership so that the two vessels sailed in company.
Refusing to show the Boston magistrates his papers, Phips was haled to
court where he abused the bench in language blazing with deep-sea
oaths, and was fined several hundred pounds. His sailors got drunk
ashore and fought the constables and cracked the heads of peaceable
citizens. Staid Boston was glad when the _Rose_ frigate and her
turbulent company bore away for the West Indies.

There was something wrong with Phip's information or the Spanish wreck
had been cleaned of her treasure before he found the place. The _Rose_
and the _Good Intent_ lay at the edge of a reef somewhere near Nassau
for several months, sending down native divers and dredging with such
scanty returns that the crew became mutinous and determined on a
program very popular in those days. Armed with cutlasses, they charged
aft and demanded of Phips that he "join them in running away with the
ship to drive a trade of piracy in the South Seas. Captain Phips ...
with a most undaunted fortitude, rushed in upon them, and with the
blo