white marble monument, adorned with an urn between
two Cupids, the figure of a ship, and also a boat at sea, with persons
in the water; these beheld by a winged eye, all done in basso relieve;
also the seven medals, as that of King William and Queen Mary; some
with Spanish impressions, as the castle, cross-portent, etc. and
likewise the figures of a sea quadrant; cross-staff, and this
inscription:

"'Near this place is interred the Body of Sir William Phips, knight;
who in the year 1687, by his great industry, discovered among the rocks
near the Banks of Bahama on the north side of Hispaniola a Spanish
plate-ship which had been under water 44 years, out of which he took in
gold and silver to the value of L300,000 sterling: and with a fidelity
equal to his conduct, brought it all to London, where it was divided
between himself and the rest of the adventurers. For which great
service he was knighted by his then Majesty, King James the 2nd, and at
the request of the principal inhabitants of New England, he accepted of
the Government of the Massachusetts, in which he continued up to the
time of his death; and discharged his trust with that zeal for the
interests of the country, and with so little regard to his own private
advantage, that he justly gained the good esteem and affection of the
greatest and best part of the inhabitants of that Colony.

"'He died the 18th of February, 1694, and his lady, to perpetuate his
memory, hath caused this monument to be erected.'"

It is far better to know the man as he was, rough-hewn, hasty,
unlettered, but simple and honest as daylight, than to accept the false
and silly epitaph of Cotton Mather, that "he was a person of so sweet a
temper that they who were most intimately acquainted with him would
commonly pronounce him the Best Conditioned Gentleman in the World."
After he had wrested his fortune from the bottom of the sea in
circumstances splendidly romantic, he used the power which his wealth
gained for him wholly in the service of the people of his own country.

During his last visit to London, when he had grown tired of being a
royal governor, he harked back to his old love, and was planning
another treasure voyage. "The Spanish wreck was not the only nor the
richest wreck which he knew to be lying under the water. He knew
particularly that when the ship which had Governor Bobadilla aboard was
cast away, there was, as Peter Martyr says, an entire table of Gold of
Three Th