Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/244

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Phipps
236
Phipps

201, 227, 248, 336; Stanhope's Life of Pitt, 1879, ii. 426, iii. 69, 86, 283, 371, &c.; Lord Malmesbury's Diary, iv. 108, 260, 380; Phipps's Memoirs of R. P. Ward, vol. i. passim, vol. ii. ch. i.; Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets of the Regency, i. 192, 252; Morning Post, 11 April 1831; Georgian Era, ii. 472; Young's Hist. of Whitby, ii. 866; Haydon's Autobiography, ed. T. Taylor, 2nd edit. i. passim; Cunningham's Life of Wilkie, vol. i. ch. v. and App. D; Cat. of the pictures of the late Earl of Mulgrave, together with fourteen works of D. Wilkie, esq., 1832; Evans's Cat. of Engr. Portraits; authorities cited. There are also several letters and despatches of Mulgrave in vol. ii. ch. ii.–v. of Lady Chatterton's Memorials of Admiral Lord Gambier, 1861. In Thornton's Foreign Secretaries of the Nineteenth Century, vol. i., is a highly eulogistic but diffuse sketch of Mulgrave's career, in which an account of the mission of 1799 is drawn from his letters to his wife. For Edmund Phipps, see also Foster's Alumni Oxon., where, however, he is confused with an uncle of the same name; Illustrated London News, 14 Nov. 1857, and works.]

G. Le G. N.

PHIPPS, JOSEPH (1708–1787), quaker, born at Norwich in 1708, was apprenticed to a shoemaker in London, where he frequented theatres and wrote a play which came into the hands of the Duke of Richmond; but, on his conversion shortly after, Phipps rescued the piece from the press, although he had been offered 100l. for the copyright. He also dallied with materialism, but, being induced by a pious fellow-apprentice to go to a quakers' meeting-house at the Savoy, he forsook his vanities, and joined the Society of Friends. In the summer of 1753 he accompanied a quakeress, Ann Mercy Bell, of York, on a street-preaching tour through the metropolis. Next year he published ‘A Summary Account of an Extraordinary Visit to this Metropolis in the Year 1753 by the Ministry of Ann Mercy Bell,’ London, 1754; 2nd ed. 1761. He died at Norwich on 14 April 1787, and was buried in the Friends' cemetery there. By his wife, Sarah, Phipps had a son, who died an infant, and three daughters.

His writings mainly consist of tracts in defence of the quakers, and replies to Samuel Newton of Norwich, who had attacked them. Among them are: ‘Brief Remarks on the common Arguments now used in support of divers Ecclesiastical Impositions in this Nation, especially as they relate to Dissenters,’ London, 1769, another edition, 1835; republished as ‘Animadversions on the Practice of Tithing under the Gospel,’ 1776, other editions, 1798, 1835; ‘An Address to the Youth of Norwich [1770?],’ Dublin, 1772, London, 1776, New York, 1808, and Newcastle, 1818; ‘The Original and Present State of Man’ (in answer to Newton), London, 1773, 8vo, Trenton, 1793, 8vo, Philadelphia, 1818, and in Friends' Library, Philadelphia, 1846, vol. x.; ‘All Swearing prohibited under the Gospel,’ London, 1781, 1784, 8vo; and ‘Dissertations on the Nature and Effect of Christian Baptism,’ London, 1781, 8vo, 1796, Philadelphia, 1811, and Dublin, 1819, 8vo, translated into German, Philadelphia, 1786. He also issued ‘The Winter Piece, a Poem. Written in commemoration of the Severe Frost, 1740,’ London, folio, 1763; and edited ‘The Journal of George Fox’ in 1765.

Another Joseph Phipps was responsible for ‘British Liberty; or a Sketch of the Laws in force relating to Court Leets and Petty Juries,’ &c.; 3rd ed. 1730, and ‘The Vestry laid Open; or a Full and Plain Detection of the many Gross Abuses, Impositions, and Oppressions of Select Vestries,’ 3rd ed. 1730.

[Works; Smith's Catalogue, ii. 411; The Irish Friend, iii. 54; Friends' Monthly Magazine, i. 767; registers at Devonshire House.

C. F. S.

PHIPPS, Sir WILLIAM (1651–1695), governor of Massachusetts, born near Pemaquid on 2 Feb. 1650–1, began life as a ship-carpenter, and in time became a merchant captain at Boston, Massachusetts. He there married the well-to-do widow of John Hull, daughter of Roger Spencer. He got tidings of a sunken Spanish treasure-ship near the Bahamas, and made an unsuccessful attempt to raise her. If we may believe his biographer, Cotton Mather, this search put Phipps on the track of another and more valuable wreck. In the hopes of recovering this, according to Mather, he went to England, and in 1683, by favour of Christopher Monck, second duke of Albemarle [q. v.], a lord of trade and plantations, obtained command of a frigate, the Algier Rose. Mather gives very full details of two mutinies which Phipps had to suppress during his command of this ship. In this expedition he failed to find the lost treasure-ship of which he was in search, but obtained further tidings of her, and learned that she was sunk off the coast of Hispaniola. The project of recovery was taken up by the Duke of Albemarle and others. In 1687 Phipps was fitted out with a fresh vessel and a more trustworthy crew, and the wreck was discovered. The total treasure is said to have amounted to 300,000l., of which 16,000l. fell to the share of Phipps.

Phipps returned to England, and on 28 June 1687 was knighted. In the following August the king created the office of provost marshal-general of New England, and Phipps was appointed to it during the king's pleasure.