With this commission Phipps went out to Massachusetts. In less than a year he returned to England, and thus took no part in the revolution which deposed James's deputy, Sir Edmund Andros [q. v.] After the latter's abdication James appears to have made overtures to Phipps, and to have offered him the governorship of New England.
Early in 1689 Phipps returned to Boston. He found the colony under the de facto government of a revolutionary convention. Andros was in prison, and his legal authority had not devolved on any successor. Soon after his arrival Phipps indicated his deliberate intention of throwing himself into the public life of Massachusetts. In March 1690 he joined the north church in Boston, making a formal profession of adhesion and repentance, and receiving baptism. This step was no merely private incident. Till the revocation of the charter by judicial sentence in 1684 church membership in Massachusetts was a necessary qualification for citizenship. Within two months of his admission to the church, Phipps was placed by the court of Massachusetts in command of an expedition against the French colonies. On 28 April 1690 he sailed, with eight ships and seven hundred men, against Port Royal. The French were wholly unprepared for resistance, and the place at once surrendered. In the following July Phipps was sent, with thirty-two vessels and 2,200 men, on a similar expedition against the French occupation of Quebec and Montreal, which resulted in a total failure. The miscarriage of Phipps's attack on Montreal enabled the French to concentrate their whole defence on Quebec, where a mixture of impetuosity and ignorance led Phipps to open fire without waiting for the land force which was to co-operate.
In 1691 Phipps revisited England, and urged upon William III the necessity of an aggressive policy against Canada, while he enlarged upon the importance of the fur trade and fisheries to the north of New England. In the September of the same year a new charter for Massachusetts was issued, and on the last day of 1691 Phipps was sworn in as governor.
The career of Phipps as governor added nothing to his reputation. He landed at Boston in May 1692, and found the witchcraft mania in full activity. He did nothing to check it or to control its fury. His first act was to appoint a special commission to try alleged cases of witchcraft. At the head of the commission he placed Stoughton, the lieutenant-governor, a man of narrow mind and harsh temper.
Another attempt against Quebec was planned, but no steps were taken towards the execution of it. All that was done by Phipps against the French and their Indian allies during his governorship was to build a fort at Pemaquid, a measure of utility in itself, but unpopular at Boston. Phipps also entangled himself in more than one discreditable brawl, and his correspondence with Fletcher, the hot-tempered and overbearing governor of New York, was singularly wanting in dignity. The various enemies whom he thus made succeeded in getting him summoned to England to answer for his conduct. In November 1694 he left Boston. On his arrival in England he narrowly escaped arrest on a civil suit. Before any proceedings were taken on the pending questions, Phipps died in London on 18 Feb. 1695, and was buried in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth in Lombard Street.
[Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts; Mather's Magnalia; colonial papers in Record Office; Palfrey's History of New England; Savage's Genealogical Dict. of New England.]
PHISTON or FISTON, WILLIAM (fl. 1570–1609), translator and author, describes himself as ‘a student of London,’ where apparently he resided most of his life. He acquired a knowledge of Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian, and his works brought him under the notice of Nowell, dean of St. Paul's, Grindal, archbishop of Canterbury, and Robert Ratcliffe, earl of Sussex, to all of whom he dedicated books; but no further particulars of his life are known.
His works are: 1. ‘A Testimonie of the True Church of God … translated out of the French [of Simon de Voyon] by William Phiston,’ London, 4to; the British Museum Catalogue conjectures the date to be 1560? but 1570 is probably more correct. 2. ‘A Lamentacion of Englande for John Ivele [Jewel], bishop of Sarisburie, by W. Ph.’ London [1571]. 3. ‘Certaine Godly Sermons … First set foorthe by Master Bernardine Occhine … and now lately collected and translated out of the Italian tongue into the English by William Phiston of London, student,’ London, 1580, 4to. 4. ‘The Welspringe of Wittie Conceites … translated out of the Italian by W. Phist., student,’ London, 1584, 4to; besides the translation, Phiston added other matter, ‘partly the invention of late writers and partly mine own.’ 5. ‘The Estate of the Germaine Empire, with the Description of Germanie,’ London, 1595, 4to; a translation from two works, one Italian the other Latin.
