ds avoided the conflict, and fled out to
sea, leaving their land forces to bear the brunt of battle. In this
action, more than half of the invaders were killed or taken prisoners.
Some days later, one of the Spanish vessels, having been separated
from her consorts, was discovered by Rhett, who attacked her, and
after a sharp fight captured her, bringing her with ninety prisoners
to Charleston.

But it was chiefly in expeditions against the French colonies to the
northward that the naval strength of the English colonies was exerted.
Particularly were the colonies of Port Royal, in Acadia, and the
French stronghold of Quebec coveted by the British, and they proved
fertile sources of contention in the opening years of the eighteenth
century. Although the movement for the capture of these colonies was
incited by the ruling authorities of Great Britain, its execution was
left largely to the colonists. One of the earliest of these
expeditions was that which sailed from Nantasket, near Boston, in
April, 1690, bound for the conquest of Port Royal.

This expedition was under the command of Sir William Phipps, a sturdy
colonist, whose life was not devoid of romantic episodes. Though his
ambitions were of the lowliest,--his dearest wish being "to command a
king's ship, and own a fair brick house in the Green Lane of North
Boston,"--he managed to win for himself no small amount of fame and
respect in the colonies. His first achievement was characteristic of
that time, when Spanish galleons, freighted with golden ingots, still
sailed the seas, when pirates buried their booty, and when the
treasures carried down in sunken ships were not brought up the next
day by divers clad in patented submarine armor. From a weather-beaten
old seaman, with whom he became acquainted while pursuing his trade
of ship-carpentering Phipps learned of a sunken wreck lying on the
sandy bottom many fathoms beneath the blue surface of the Gulf of
Mexico. The vessel had gone down fifty years before, and had carried
with her great store of gold and silver, which she was carrying from
the rich mines of Central and South America to the Court of Spain.
Phipps, laboriously toiling with adze and saw in his ship-yard,
listened to the story of the sailor, his blood coursing quicker in his
veins, and his ambition for wealth and position aroused to its fullest
extent. Here, then, thought he, was the opportunity of a lifetime.
Could he but recover the treasures carrie