William Phipps and the Diving Bell Bubble Sunken Treasure, Witches and the Route to Empire

William Phipps’ rise to fame and fortune was meteoric. His short and hectic lifewas punctuated with many unlikely achievements, of which raising treasurefrom the wreck of a Spanish galleon was the most famous. For this, he wasknighted.Locating his Spanish prize was no fluke. Phipps had worked on the project foryears. As in all his endeavours, success was achieved mainly by force ofcharacter. His determination and drive saw him become, in turn, a shipwright,a mariner,treasure hunter, merchant, general, an admiral, an Indian fighter andareforming royal governor. Born a backwoodsman, Phipps became one of the wealthiest and most influentialmen in seventeenth-century Boston. He mixed with members of the colony’smost prestigious families, whose members were clerics, magistrates,merchants, and lawmakers. But he was never fully accepted as their equal. Boston was a victim of its own ultra-Puritan origins. Its ruling families wereentrenched and committed to its drawn-out (and until this point largelyunsuccessful) campaign for independence from England and English laws.Appointed by an English king to govern the province of Massachusetts Bay,Phippsbrought his pugnacious, overbearing, no-nonsense approach tobear. He had his admirers, but he also made many enemies. These included hisown deputy governor, who thought himself belittled when Phipps put a stop tothe hanging of Salem's‘witches’. There were sufficient detractors to persuade the Lords of Trade toinvestigate, and Phipps was recalled to London to answer his critics. There was noinvestigation and no hearing. Phipps did not survive long enough. He died inLondon, his life ended by a flu-like infection. He was just forty-four.Phipps had been a champion for his ungrateful New England colony and evenafter death an inspiration for a new generation of English inventors andinvestors. He ignited interest in diving and diving bells, and in new means of finance and investment.