The New England Knight: Sir William Phips, 1651–1695 by Emerson W. Baker, John G. Reid (review)

206 LETTERS IN CANADA 199B Grosart as well, even though it has no textual authority. Surprisingly, however, in 'Psychozia,' canto I, Jacob's text agrees with Grosart against 1647 three times as often as it agrees with 1647 against Grosart. It seems that, here at least, Jacob's text, supposedly 1647 critically edited, is Grosart with sporadic corrections from 1647 and some accidental modernizing ('rhythmes' for 'rythmes' in 'Psychozia,' 1.2; 'Buzzard' for 'Buzard' in 'Psychozia,' 1.3). Not only Jacob's text is unreliable; there are errors throughout the edition. For example, in the quasi-facsimile transcription of 1642'S title page: the epigraph from Scaliger has lost the third word (afferre) altogether, and factidiosumque appears as fastiodusumque (silently correcting et, then garbling idio). Those title-page readings might, just conceivably, appear in 'Copy: Univ. of Toronto,' were it not that the University of Toronto owns no copy of 1642. (A.H. DE QUEHEN) Emerson W. Baker and John G. Reid. The New England Knight: Sir William Phips, 1651-1695 University of Toronto Press. xxii, 360. $65.00, $19-95 The reputation of Sir William Phips, the first royally appointed governor of Massachusetts, did not fare well either among his contemporaries or in the hands of most twentieth-century historians. The New England Knight is an interesting new attempt to examine his life and career in the context of the changing and labyrinthine world of English territorial and economic expansion at the end of the seventeenth century. The authors' work is usefully informed by recent scholarship in a number of areas: relations with the Native peoples and the French in the surrounding territories; the seafaring worlds of the Atlantic; financial developments in England; social change in New England; and the tergiversations of empire and government at the time of the Glorious Revolution. Phips's life, the authors show, intersected with all of these concerns. The world from which Phips carne, pioneering settlements on the northeastern frontier in what is now Maine, placed him both geographically and socially outside the traditional governing circles of Massachusetts Bay Colony. But it brought him into contact with the Native population, particularly the Wabanaki, and with the French. Relations, sometimes violent, with these non-English neighbours, and the search for patrons to secure his place and ambitions in New England society are two strands fUIU1ing thr(j)ughout his life which are explored in this book. In the 16805 Phips turned to the sea for his fortunes and led two voyages to find and salvage wrecks in the Spanish Caribbean. His backers included the king, the duke of Albemarle, and the Royal Mint. These voyages, and the thirty tons of silver which he discovered, were the foundation of his future career. He was awarded a knighthood and a HUMANITIES 207 prominent place in Defoe's Essay on Projects. But these successes were followed by less successful expeditions against the French in Canada. Phips's reputation at this stage stood considerably higher in England than it did at home. The friendship and patronage of two leading New England divines, Cotton and Increase Mather, were probably, as the authors suggest, what secured Phips's appointment in 1692 as the first governor of Massachusetts under the new charter. The colony, at the accession of William and Mary, was highly factionalized. The Mathers thought that the new charter was the best possible compromise among the conflicting positions of the various parties who hoped for a restoration of the old charter and those who had been the champions and beneficiaries of the experiment in direct royal administration in the years immediately before the Revolution. The Mathers hoped that a new man like Phips could navigate these shoals. The New England Knight then nicely analyses Phips's career as he dealt with this fractious society. The new governor quickly became embroiled in the witchcraft crisis. The irregularity of his multiracial household and some of his wife's earlier connections brought them under suspicion and limited his actions. Nevertheless Phips succeeded in moderating. the frenzy. His overall policy for the colony was commercial expansion in the northeast and ultimate extinction of the French presence in Canada. In his quarrels with neighbouring...