Now with a small company of other men he sailed from thence to Hispaniola, where by the policy of his address, he fished out of a very old Spaniard, (or Portuguese) a little advice about the true spot where lay the wreck which he had been hitherto seeking, as unprosperously, as the Chemists have their Aurisick Stone : That it was upon a reef of shoals, a few leagues to the northward of Port de la Plata, upon Hispaniola, a port so called, it seems, from the landing of some of the shipwrecked company, with a boat full of plate, saved out of their sinking frigate. Nevertheless, when he had searched very narrowly the spot, whereof the old Spaniard had advised him, he had not hitherto exactly lit upon it. Such thorns did vex his affairs while he was in the Rose-frigate; but none of all these things could retund the edge of his expectations to find the wreck ; with such expectations he returned then into England, that he might there better furnish himself to prosecute a new discovery.

So proper was his behavior, that the best noblemen in the kingdom now admitted him into their conversation; but yet he was opposed by powerful enemies, that clogged his affairs with such demurrages and such disappointments, as would have wholly discouraged his designs, if his patience had not been invincible. He who can wait, bath what he desireth. This his indefatigable patience, with a proportionable diligence, at length overcame the difficulties that had been thrown in his way; and prevailing with the Duke of Albemarle, and some other persons of quality, to fit him out, he set sail for the fishing-ground, which had been so well baited half a hundred years before: . . . Nevertheless, as they were upon the return, one of the men looking over the side of the Periaga, into the calm water, he spied a sea feather, growing, as he judged, out of a rock; whereupon they bade one of their Indians to dive and fetch this feather, that they might however carry home something with them, and make, at least, as fair a triumph as Caligula's. The diver bringing up the feather, brought therewithal a surprising story, that he perceived a number of great guns in the watery world where he had found his feather; the report of which great guns exceedingly astonished the whole company; and at once turned their despondencies for their ill success into assurances, that they had now lit upon the true spot of ground which they had been looking for; and they were further confirmed in these assurances, when upon further diving, the Indian fetched up a sow, as they styled it, or a lump of silver, worth perhaps two or three hundred pounds. . . . and they so prospered in this new fishery, that in a little while they had, without the loss of any man's life, brought up thirty-two tons of silver; for it was now come to measuring of silver by tons.

But there was one extraordinary distress which Captain Phipps now found himself plunged into : For his men were come out with him upon seamen's wages, at so much per month ; and when they saw such vast litters of silver sows and pigs, as they call them, come on board them at the captain's call, they knew not how to bear it, that they should not share all among themselves, and be gone to lead a short life and a merry, in a climate where the arrest of those that had hired them should not reach them. . . . Captain Phipps now coming up to London in the year 1687, with near three hundred thousand pounds sterling aboard him, did acquit himself with such an exemplary honesty, that partly by his fulfilling his assurances to the seamen, and partly by his exact and punctual care to have his employers defrauded of nothing that might conscientiously belong unto them, he had less than sixteen thousand pounds left unto himself: As an acknowledgment of which honesty in him, the Duke of Albemarle made unto his wife, whom he never saw, a present of a golden cup, near a thousand pounds in value. The character of an honest man he had so merited in the whole course of his life, and especially in this last act of it, that this, in conjunction with his other serviceable qualities, procured him the favors of the greatest persons in the nation ; and he that had been so diligent in his business, must now stand before kings, and not stand before mean men. . . . Accordingly the king, in consideration of the service done by him, in bringing such a treasure into the nation, conferred upon him the honor of knighthood ; and if we new reckon him, A Knight of the Golden Fleece, the style might pretend unto some circumstances that would justify it. Or call him, if you please, The Knight of Honesty; for it was honesty with industry that raised him.

Indeed, when King James offered, as he did, unto Sir William Phipps an opportunity to ask what he pleased of him, Sir William generously prayed for nothing but this, That New England might have its lost privileges restored. The king then replied, Anything but that! Whereupon he set himself to consider what was the next thing that he might ask for the service, not of himself, but of his country. The result of his consideration was, that by petition to the king, he obtained, with expense of some hundreds of guineas, a patent, which constituted him the high sheriff of that country; hoping, by his deputies in that office, to supply the country still with conscientious juries, which was the only method that the New Englanders had left them to secure anything that was dear unto them.