His coat has a wide embroidery of golden foliage; and his waistcoat,
likewise, is all flowered over and bedizened with gold. His red, rough
hands, which have done many a good day’s work with the hammer and adze,
are half covered by the delicate lace ruffles at his wrists. On a table
lies his silver-hilted sword, and in a corner of the room stands his
gold-headed cane, made of a beautifully polished West Indian wood.

Somewhat such an aspect as this, did Sir William Phips present, when he
sat in Grandfather’s chair, after the king had appointed him governor of
Massachusetts. Truly, there was need that the old chair should be
varnished, and decorated with a crimson cushion, in order to make it
suitable for such a magnificent looking personage.

But Sir William Phips had not always worn a gold embroidered coat, nor
always sat so much at his ease as he did in Grandfather’s chair. He was a
poor man’s son, and was born in the province of Maine, where he used to
tend sheep upon the hills, in his boyhood and youth. Until he had grown to
be a man, he did not even know how to read and write. Tired of tending
sheep, he next apprenticed himself to a ship-carpenter, and spent about
four years in hewing the crooked limbs of oak trees into knees for
vessels.

In 1673, when he was twenty-two years old, he came to Boston, and soon
afterwards was married to a widow lady, who had property enough to set him
up in business. It was not long, however, before he lost all the money
that he had acquired by his marriage, and became a poor man again. Still,
he was not discouraged. He often told his wife that, some time or other,
he should be very rich, and would build a "fair brick house" in the Green
Lane of Boston.