influence. The officials sent over from England were
generally Episcopalians--the officers of the English men-of-war
frequently in port, also were generally Episcopalians. And though the
present Governor, Sir William Phips, was a member of the North Church,
the Reverend Cotton Mather taking the place of his father, the Reverend
Increase Mather--and though the Governor was greatly under the influence
of that dogmatic and superstitious divine--his wife, Lady Mary, was
utterly opposed to the whole witchcraft delusion and persecution.

Sir William himself had quite a romantic career. Starting in life as one
of the later offspring of a father and mother who had twenty-six
children, and had come as poor emigrants to Maine, he was a simple and
ignorant caretaker of sheep until eighteen years of age. Then he became
a ship carpenter; and at the age of twenty-two went to Boston, working
at his trade in the day time, and learning how to read and write at
night. In Boston he had the good fortune to capture the heart of a fair
widow by the name of Mistress Hull, who was a daughter of Captain
Robert Spencer. With her hand he received a fair estate; which was the
beginning of a large fortune. For, it enabled him to set up a ship-yard
of his own; and by ventures to recover lost treasure, sunk in
shipwrecked Spanish galleons, under the patronage of the Duke of
Albemarle, he took back to England at one time the large amount of
L300,000 in gold, silver and precious stones, of which his share was
L16,000--and in addition a gold cup, valued at L1,000 presented to his
wife Mary. And such was the able conduct and the strict integrity he had
shown in the face of many difficulties and temptations, that King James
knighted him, making him Sir William.

Now, through his own deserts, and the influence of the Reverend Increase
Mather, agent in England of the colony, he was Governor-in-Chief of the
Province of Massachusetts Bay, and Captain General (for military
purposes) of all New England. And he was living in that "fair brick
house in Green lane," which, years before, he had promised his wife that
he would some day build for her to live in.

Lady Mary was a very sweet, nice woman; but she had a will of her own,
and never could be persuaded that Sir William's rise in the world was
not owing entirely to her having taken pity on him, and married below
her station. And really there was considerable truth in this view of the
matter, which she was n