" [Footnote: _Memoire presente a M. de Ponchartrain par M. de
Meneval, 6 Avril_, 1691.] This statement of Meneval is not quite
correct: for an order of the council is on record, requiring Phips to
restore his chest and clothes; and, as the order received no
attention, Governor Bradstreet wrote to the refractory commander a
note, enjoining him to obey it at once. [Footnote: This note, dated 7
Jan., 1691, is cited by Bowen in his _Life of Phips_, Sparks's
_American Biography_, VII.] Phips thereupon gave up some of the money
and the worst part of the clothing, still keeping the rest. [Footnote:
_Memoire de Meneval_.] After long delay, the council released Meneval:
upon which, Phips and the populace whom he controlled demanded that he
should be again imprisoned; but the "honest people" of the town took
his part, his persecutor was forced to desist, and he set sail
covertly for France. [Footnote: _Ibid_.] This, at least, is his own
account of the affair.
As Phips was to play a conspicuous part in the events that immediately
followed, some notice of him will not be amiss. He is said to have
been one of twenty-six children, all of the same mother, and was born
in 1650 at a rude border settlement, since called Woolwich, on the
Kennebec.
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