This enterprise was conceived in 1686, and was so singularly like the partnership formed ten years later to finance the cruise of Captain Kidd after pirates' plunder that the Earl of Bellomont, Lord Chancellor Somers, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and William III may have been somewhat inspired to undertake this unlucky venture by the dazzling success of the Phips "syndicate." In a small merchantman called the _James and Mary_, Captain Phips set sail from England in 1686, having another vessel to serve as a tender. Arriving at Port de la Plata, he hewed out a large canoe from a cotton-wood tree, "so large as to carry eight or ten oars," says Cotton Mather, "for the making of which perigua (as they call it), he did, with the same industry that he did everything else, employ his own hand and adze, and endure no little hardship, lying abroad in the woods many nights together." The canoe was used by a gang of native divers quartered on board the tender. For some time they worked along the edge of a reef called the Boilers, guided by the story of that ancient Spaniard, but found nothing to reward their exertions. This crew was returning to report to Captain Phips when one of the men, staring over the side into the wonderfully clear water, spied a "sea feather" or marine plant of uncommon beauty growing from what appeared to be a rock. An Indian was sent down to fetch it as a souvenir of the bootless quest, that they might, however, carry home something with them. This diver presently bobbed up with the sea feather, and therewithal a surprising story "that he perceived a number of great guns in the watery world, where he had found the feather; the report of which great guns exceedingly astonished the whole company; and at once turned their despondencies for their ill success into assurances that they had now lit upon the true spot of ground which they had been looking for; and they were further confirmed in these assurances when upon further diving, the Indian fetched up a _Sow_ as they styled it, or a lump of silver worth perhaps two or three hundred pounds. Upon this they prudently buoyed the place, that they might readily find it again; and they went back unto their Captain whom for some while they distressed with nothing but such bad news as they formerly thought they must have carried him. Nevertheless, they so slipped the Sow of silver on one side under the table (where they were now sitting with the Captain, and hearing him express his resolutions to wait still patiently upon the Providence of God under these disappointments), that when he should look on one side, he might see that Odd Thing before him. At last he saw it and cried out with some agony: