Pietas in patriam the life of His Excellency Sir William Phips, Knt. late Captain…

After all, I do not know that I have been, by any personal Obligations or Circumstances, charmed into any Partiality for the Memory of this Worthy Man; but I do here from a real Satisfaction of Conscience concerning him, declare to all the World, that I reckon him, to have been really a very Worthy Man; that few Men in the World rising from so mean an Original, as he, would have acquitted themselves with a thousandth Part of his Capacity or Integrity; that he left unto the World a notable Example of a Disposition to Do Good, and encountered and overcame almost invincible Temptations in doing it.

After all, I do not know that I have been, by any personal Obligations or Circumstances, charmed into any Partiality for the Memory of this Worthy Man; but I do here from a real Satisfaction of Conscience concerning him, declare to all the World, that I reckon him, to have been really a very Worthy Man; that few Men in the World rising from so mean an Original, as he, would have acquitted themselves with a thousandth Part of his Capacity or Integrity; that he left unto the World a notable Example of a Disposition to Do Good, and encountred and overcame almost invincible Temptations in doing it.

And I do most solemnly Profess, that I have most conscientiously endeavoured the utmost Sincerity and Veracity of a Christian as well as an Historian in the History, which I have now given of him. I have not written of Sir William Phips, as they say Xenophon did of Cyrus, Non ad Historiae Fidem, sed ad Effigiem veri imperii; what should have been, rather than what really was. If the Envy of his few Enemies, be not now Quiet; I must freely say it, That for many Weeks before he died, there was not one Man among his personal Enemies, whom he would not readily and cheerfully have done all the kind Offices of a Friend unto: Wherefore though the Gentleman in England, that once published a Vindication of Sir William Phips against some of his Enemies, chose to put the Name of Publicans upon them, they must in this be counted worse than the Publicans of whom our Saviour says, They Love those that Love them.

And I do most solemnly Profess, that I have most conscientiously endeavoured the utmost Sincerity and Veracity of a Christian as well as an Historian in the History, which I have now given of him. I have not written of Sir William Phips, as they say Xenophon did of Cyrus, Non ad Historiae Fidem, sed ad Effigiem veri imperii; what should have been, rather than what really was. If the Envy of his few Enemies, be not now Quiet; I must freely say it, That for many Weeks before he died, there was not one Man among his personal Enemies, whom he would not readily and chearfully have done all the kind Offices of a Friend unto: Wherefore though the Gentleman in England, that once published a Vindication of Sir William Phips against some of his Enemies, chose to put the Name of Publicans upon them, they must in this be counted worse than the Publicans of whom our Saviour says, They Love those that Love them.