William Phips - Military Expeditions

Military Expeditions

Phips was ill-suited for the post. He had no administrative or legal experience, and he had no significant political connections either with the Andros administration or with local politicians. The Andros council had also already appointed a provost marshal by the time Phips arrived and sheriffs had been sworn in. Andros, distracted by Indian frontier issues and the impending annexation of New York and the Jerseys to the dominion, did not initially meet with Phips upon his arrival in early June. Although Andros actually swore Phips into the post in early July, his council refused Phips' demand that the previously named sheriffs be dismissed. Angry at his treatment and the uncertainty over his status, Phips sailed for London in mid-July. During this relatively brief stay in Boston, Phips attended Cotton Mather's services at the North Church, and established a close relationship with the influential pastor.

Upon his arrival in London, he learned that his principal patrons, Narborough and Albemarle, were either dead or dying. (Albemarle, then governor of Jamaica, was only rumored to be ill at the time, but he died in October.) He established contact with Cotton's father Increase, who was in London working to end the Andros regime and restore the old Massachusetts charter. Motivated by a shared dislike of Andros, they worked together to bring about his downfall. After the Glorious Revolution in late 1688 replaced the Catholic James with the Protestants William and Mary, Phips and Mather petitioned the new monarchs for restoration of the Massachusetts charter, and successfully convinced the Lords of Trade to delay the transmission of formal instructions about the change of power to Andros. Phips returned to Boston in May 1689, carrying proclamations from the king and queen, to find that Andros had been arrested in a revolt in Boston. Phips served for a time as an overseer guarding some of the high-profile prisoners taken in the revolt; Edward Randolph accused him of opening their letters in his account of the captivity.