[137] This Insinuation is quite well sustained, as will appear by an Extract from Mr. Mather's Diary, printed in Quincy's _Hist. H. C._ i, 60. The Life of Phips is substantially included in the Magnalia. As originally published, it is of considerable rarity. [138] See Vol. I, Page 25-6. [139] This Judgment has been sustained by Posterity. Phips's Hands were tied. He could not have done differently, had he had the Knowledge and Disposition, without giving offence to President Mather, who had secured his Advancement. [140] To this rather mild and inoffensive remark of the Author, Mr. Mather replies: "The last Effort of his [Calef's] Malice is a Postscript against the Life of Sir William Phips, against whose Memory, why any whose _Throats are an open Sepulchre_, should be so monstrously envious, that like Jackalls, they can't let him rest quietly in his Sepulchre, good Men can't imagine any Reason but the third Chapter of Genesis."--_Some Few Remarks_, &c. 47. [141] "I have endured more than a little from some sort of Men, for my writing the Life of Sir William Phips, and speaking well of him, without either doing or speaking ill against any one good Man under the whole Heavens, in the whole Composure. It seems that I must now write an Apology, for that Book: for which I have no Confession to make, but, _That I don't wish one Line of it unwritten_."--_Ibid_, 47-8. [142] It must be allowed that the Doctor was a little unfortunate in his Choice of a Hero by which to measure his own. [143] The "three venerable Persons" were "Nath. Mather, John Howe and Matthew Mead." The first was the Uncle to Dr. Cotton Mather, then a Minister in Dublin, where he died a few Months later. Howe and Mead are too well known to require a notice here. [144] To this Dr. Mather answers: "When mine Adversaries had, with a concocted Malice, done all they could, they thought at least they had found one Passage wherein they might impeach my Veracity. I had said, that before Quebeck, Sir William lay _within Pistol Shot of the Enemies Cannon_, and that his Ship was shot through, in _an hundred Places_, and that it was shot through with _Four and Twenty Pounders_. (Tis a gross Hardship for any to make my Meaning as if all the shot had been so.) And now they fall to Tragical Exclamattons; they think _Four and Twenty Pounders_ to be too small Dimensions for the Clamors they must batter me withal.... I wrote no more than the very Words which I find in a Journal of the Expedition to Qcebec.... _Calef_ himself has lately owned, that he verily believes I did so."--_Some Few Remarks_, &c. 51-2. [145] After the Doctor had spoken of being "battered with Clamors," he triumphantly Exclaims--"But hold _Robin_, [Mr. Calef's Christian Name being Robert] I am not so soon _shot through_; and the _Statue_, as I told thee, has _knock'd out thy Brains_!"--_Ibid_, Page 52. His Life of Phips he calls a _Statue_.