On a mid-November day in 1693, the governor of Massachusetts happened to pass by the scene of an argument on a Boston wharf. Sir William Phips was stopped by on the of protagonists, the Huguenot merchant Benjamin Faneuil, and informed that the customs officials William Hill and Henry Francklyn were about to seize the vessel and cargo of an Acadian trader, Abraham Boudrot. Their authority came from the collector of customs for New England, Jahleel Brenton. 'For what?' the governor demanded. Faneuil replied too softly to be heard by Hill and Francklyn, who described the incident in a later deposition, but his words prompted a declaration by Phips that must have been clearly audible for some distance around. Boudrot and Faneuil, the governor proclaimed, 'are as good or better English men than the Collector is, and let him seize them if he dare. If he doth, I will break his head.' Understandably, Hill and Francklyn then abandoned their effort to seize Boudrot's shallop, and its 'sundry Packs of Beaver and ... considerable quantity of skins and small Furrs' were soon safely unloaded.