experience with the Phips
temper was even more disastrous. He refused to lend some of his men to
man a cruiser which the governor wished to send after coastwise
pirates. When next the twain met, Captain Short was first well
threshed, then bundled off to prison, and from there skipped home to
England in a merchantman.

Such methods of administration had served admirably well to rule those
mutinous dogs of seamen aboard the _Rose_ frigate, but they were
resented in Boston, and after other altercations, Governor Phips found
it necessary to go to England to answer the complaints which had been
piling up in the offices of the Lords of the Council of Trade and
Plantations. He sailed in his own yacht, a brigantine built in a
Boston shipyard, and we may be sure that he was ready to face his
accusers with a stout heart.

Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts, analyzed the trouble as
follows:

"Sir William Phips' rule was short. His conduct when captain of a ship
of war is represented very much to his advantage; but further talents
were necessary for the good government of a province. He was of a
benevolent, friendly disposition; at the same time quick and
passionate....

"A vessel arrived from the Bahamas, with a load of fustick, for which
no bond had been given. Col. Foster, a merchant of Boston, a member of
the Council, and fast friend of the Governor, bought the fustick at
such price that he was loth to give up the bargain. The Collector
seized the vessel and goods; and upon Foster's representation to the
Governor, he interposed. There was at that time no Court of Admiralty.
Sir William took a summary way of deciding this case, and sent an order
to the Collector to forbear meddling with the goods, and upon his
refusal to observe orders, the Governor went to the wharf, and after
warm words on both sides, laid hands upon the Collector, but with what
degree of violence was controverted by both. The Governor prevailed,
and the vessel and goods were taken out of the hands of the Collector.

"There had been a misunderstanding also between the Governor and
Captain Short of the _Nonesuch_ frigate. In their passage from England
a prize was taken; and Short complained that the Governor had deprived
him of part of his share or legal interest in her. Whether there were
grounds for it does not appear. The captains of men of war stationed
in the colonies were in those days required to follow such instructions
as t