of Andros as much as was the case in Massachusetts. In the first place,
Connecticut had had a lawful government and a law-abiding people; its
charter had not been taken away as a punishment, but as a political
necessity; while Massachusetts had been fighting for a system of more
than questionable legality, and in a spirit which might well seem to
the royal officials to be seditious. Connecticut had enjoyed a form of
government in which the people had really controlled public affairs;
in Massachusetts the government had been in the hands of an oligarchy,
who resented most bitterly their deposition from power as robbing
them of their peculiar privileges. In Connecticut the ecclesiastical
system at this time was judicious and moderate; the radical tendencies
of the New Haven colony had been held in check by the wiser policy
of Hartford. Persecution had never been a feature of Connecticut
religion, and its history is not disgraced with the accounts of
frequent religious quarrels, excommunications, and expulsions which
are so familiar to that of the neighboring colony. In Massachusetts
Andros found himself opposed and thwarted in every way that the angry
leaders could devise; in Connecticut, though men were attached to
their self-government and resented its loss, he was received with
respect and consideration. One is led to suspect that, with all their
pride in their charter and love of their liberties, the leading men
of Connecticut were shrewd enough to see the advantages that they
received from the new arrangement. They saw the arrogance of their old
rivals of the “Bay Colony” humiliated; they had the pleasure of seeing
Hampshire county compelled to come to Hartford to court, and they
felt themselves favored and trusted by the governor. Besides all these
considerations, from the situation of Connecticut, lying as it did
between Massachusetts and New York, it was much to Andros’s interest
that he should keep the colony well disposed, and he took some trouble
to do so.
And, after all, what do the charges of tyranny and misgovernment amount
to, even in Massachusetts? The real _gravamen_ of all the charges is,
that the charter had been taken away, and the people of Massachusetts
did not enjoy those laws of England which they had always claimed as
their birthright. The personal charges against Andros were so frivolous
that the colonial agents did not dare to put their hands to them when
the case was brought to trial in England, and, by their failure to
appear, confessed that they were false and malicious. It is not likely
that Andros was always conciliatory. That a population of dissenting
Whigs should put difficulties in the way of public service of the
Church of England, as by law established, must have been to Andros
unendurable, and it is absurd to represent his use of a meeting-house
in Boston for the religious services of the national church as an
instance of malignant despotism.[140] It is far from improbable that
Andros was compelled against his will to be as civil as he was to the
American non-conformists, because his master was trafficking with
them in England. While Increase Mather was intriguing with the king
and receiving friendly messages from Father Petre, and while men like
Alsop and Rosewell and Penn were basking in the favors of the court at
Whitehall, a governor of New England, even if he had wished, could not
venture upon any acts of oppression in America.[141] In fact, Andros’s
actions in insisting on the services of the English Church in Boston
may be considered among the most creditable in his history, and exhibit
the character of the man. He risked offending the king, and did offend
the puritans, in order to show respect to that historic church of his
nation, which king and puritan alike desired to overthrow.
It is quite probable that Andros was at times rough in his language.
Without justifying him in this, it may be pleaded that it certainly
was not an uncommon fault of military men; and besides, there were
a good many things that must have made the use of strong language a
relief. He did not have a very high appreciation of Indian deeds; but
few honest men to-day, legal or lay, would differ from him. He reviled
the palladium of New England liberties, the towns; but perhaps in
this he was in advance of his age. He reorganized the court system,
established tables of fees, and changed the method of proving wills;
but here the blame is not his; but if any one’s, it should lie upon
the king who established the province, or the council who passed the
laws. The truth seems to be that Andros was shocked and scandalized at
the loose, happy-go-lucky way of doing business that had, up to this
time, served the colonies; and he labored in New England, as he had in
New York, and as he afterwards did in Virginia, to give his province
a good, efficient, general system of administration. What made it
objectionable to the colonies was not that it was bad, but that it was
different from what they had had. The man who does his arithmetic upon
his fingers would count it a hardship if he were compelled to use the
much more convenient processes known to better educated men. The case
was the same in New England. They did not want to be improved; they had
no desire for any more efficient or regular administration than they
were accustomed to. They preferred managing their own affairs badly to
having them done for them, were it ever so well. It is not difficult
for us to appreciate their discontent.
It is harder for us to put ourselves in Andros’s place, and to feel
with him the disgust of an experienced and orderly administrator at
the loose and slipshod methods that he saw everywhere; the indignation
of the loyal servant of the king at hardly concealed disloyalty and
sedition; the resentment of a devoted member of the national Church
of England at the insults heaped upon it by the men who had failed in
their previous attempt to destroy it.
Andros failed to conciliate Massachusetts. An angel from heaven bearing
King James’s commission would have failed. A rebellion against his
power was carefully prepared, doubtless in concert with the Whig
leaders in England; and when the news of the English Revolution came,
Massachusetts broke out also, arrested the governor, destroyed the
government, and set up an irregular government of its own.[142] The
object of this revolution was evidently to overthrow the Dominion of
New England, and to resume separate colonial independence before the
new English authorities had time to communicate with Andros. There is
no reason to think that Andros would have tried to hold the country
for James. Respect for the law was, with him, the reason for his
loyalty to the crown; and though he was personally attached to the
Stuarts and had acted under James for many years, he was governor of
the Dominion, not for James Stuart, but for the king of England.
The popular leaders were indeed afraid, not that Andros would
oppose the revolution in England, but that he would accept it, and
be confirmed by William and Mary in the same position he had held
under James, and that thus the hated union of the colonies would be
perpetuated. Their revolution was only too successful. They had their
own way, and the events in Salem in 1692 were a commentary on the
benefits of colonial autonomy.
In Rhode Island and Connecticut the old charters were reassumed. In
Connecticut, as there had been little break when Andros came, so now
there was little trouble when he departed. Secretary Allyn had managed
the affairs of the colony before the “usurpation”; Secretary Allyn had
been the chief intermediary between Andros and the people; Secretary
Allyn continued to manage Connecticut affairs after Andros had gone.
The particularists succeeded in getting possession of the government,
in spite of the opposition of a strong minority, and Connecticut,
like Massachusetts, returned to her insignificant but precious
independence.[143]
Andros succeeded in escaping once, but was arrested in Rhode Island,
and returned by the magistrates there to the revolutionary leaders in
Boston. By these he was kept in prison for nearly a year, and then sent
to England, where, as has been said, no one appeared against him.[144]
Hutchinson complains that the Massachusetts agents were misled by their
counsel, Sir John Somers. When one considers that Somers was one of the
greatest lawyers the bar of England has ever known, one is inclined
to believe that he knew his clients’ case was too bad to take into
court.[145]
The government of William and Mary found nothing to condemn in Andros’s
conduct, and showed their appreciation of his services by sending him
out, in 1692, as governor of Virginia, adjoining to the office at the
same time the governorship of Maryland.[146]
He exhibited here the same qualities that had characterized his
government in New York and New England; intelligent aptitude for
business, love of regularity and order, zeal for honest administration,
and consequently some degree of severity upon offenders against the
navigation laws who were often men of good birth and position, and
last, though not least, a great dislike of the interference of meddling
ecclesiastics with matters of state. He reduced the records of the
province to order, finding that they had been seriously neglected;
and when the State House was burned, he provided a building for them,
and had them again carefully sorted and registered. He encouraged
the introduction of manufactures and the planting of cotton, and
established a legal size for the tobacco cask, an act which protected
the merchants from arbitrary plundering by custom house officials in
England, but which was used by his enemies to form the basis of an
accusation of defrauding the revenue. He was on the best of terms with
the prominent men of the Dominion, and he left behind him a pleasant
memory in Virginia among the laity, and among those of the clergy who
were not under the influence of Commissary Blair. The quarrel with
Blair was an unfortunate one, for, though meddlesome and dogmatic, he
was working for the higher interests of the colony; but the evidence
he himself supplies of the temper of his proceedings explains Sir
Edmund’s antipathy.
He was recalled to England in 1698, and was worsted in his contest
with Blair, having been unfortunate enough to bring upon himself
the resentment of the Bishop of London. The record of the trial is
preserved at Lambeth, and has been printed in this country, and a
perusal of it will convince most readers that Sir Edmund received very
hard usage, and might have complained, in the words of the lawyer who
was defeated in a contest with Laud, that he had been “choked by a pair
of lawn-sleeves.”[147]
The rest of his life was passed at home. The government still
showed their confidence in him by appointing him the Governor of
Guernsey.[148] He lived quietly, passing a peaceful old age, and died
in February, 1714 at the age of seventy-six. His continued interest
in the welfare of the colonies, in the service of which he had passed
so many years, is evidenced by the fact that his name appears among the
members of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts.[149]
Removed from the prejudices of his own day and generation, and regarded
in the impartial light of history, Sir Edmund Andros appears not as
the cruel persecutor that he seemed to the Mathers and the Sewalls,
nor as the envious Sanballat that Blair’s fervent Scotch imagination
pictured him, but as a single-hearted, loyal English gentleman, of the
best type of those cavaliers, devoted to church and king, who, in their
horror at the results of puritanism and liberalism in England, were
willing to sacrifice if necessary some degree of personal liberty in
order to secure the dominion of law.[150]
Judging from what we know of him, we should have looked to see him, had
he been in England instead of in America at the time of the Revolution,
by the side of many fellow Tories maintaining the liberties and the
religion of his country. In America, far from the scene of conflict,
his duty was to support the government of the king; but the claim of
the colonists that, by arresting him, they prevented him from “making
an Ireland of America,” is disproved by his immediate and loyal
acceptance of the results of the Revolution, and by the confidence the
new government immediately reposed in him.[151]
The French authorities in Canada, who were in a position to judge his
character correctly, have left on record their opinion that it was
hopeless to expect assistance from him against his countrymen in the
struggle between the two nations that broke out after the abdication of
James II. The Chevalier de Callières, Governor of Montreal, wrote to
the Marquis de Seignelay as follows:
“Chevalier Andros, now Governor-General of New England and New
York, having already declared in his letter to M. de Denonville
that he took all the Iroquois under his protection as subjects of
the crown of England, and having prevented them returning to M.
de Denonville to make peace with us, there is no longer reason to
hope for its conclusion through the English, nor for the alienation
of the Iroquois from the close union which exist with those (the
English), in consequence of the great advantage they derive from
thence, the like to which we cannot offer for divers reasons.
“Chevalier Andros is a Protestant as well as the whole English
colony, so that there is no reason to hope that he will remain
faithful to the King of England (James II.), and we must expect
that he will not only urge the Iroquois to continue the war against
us, but that he will also add Englishmen to them to lead them and
seize the posts of Niagara, Michillimackinac and others proper to
render him master of all the Indians, our allies, according to the
project they have long since formed, and which they were beginning
to execute when we declared war against the Iroquois, and when we
captured seventy Englishmen who were going to take possession of
Michillimackinac, one of the most important posts of Canada.”[151]
It is gratifying to notice that at last his character and services
are beginning to be better appreciated in the provinces over which he
ruled; and we may hope that in time the Andros of partisan history will
give place, even in the popular narratives of colonial affairs, to the
Andros that really existed, stern and proud and uncompromising, it is
true, but honest, upright, and just; a loyal servant of the crown, and
a friend to the best interests of the people whom he governed.
NOTES.
[102] The principal authority for the facts of Andros’s life before
he became governor of the Duke of York’s province is a biographical
sketch in the _History of Guernsey_, by Jonathan Duncan, Esq., London,
1841, written by the late Mr. Thomas Andros of Guernsey, who died in
1853. This sketch was copied in _N. Y. Colonial Documents_, ii. 740,
and has been used by W. H. Whitmore in his memoir of Sir Edmund Andros,
in the first volume of _The Andros Tracts_. Mr. Whitmore has added to
the sketch some few additional facts collected from a pedigree at the
Heralds’ Office and from private family papers. His memoir is the most
convenient, as it is the fullest and most accurate, life of Andros that
has appeared. The _History of Guernsey_, by Ferdinand Brock Tupper,
contains a few additional facts in regard to him, but of trifling
importance. _Vide_ pp. 367, 377, 392. See also _Chronicles of Castle
Cornet_ by the same author.
[103] Duncan, _History of Guernsey_, p. 89.
[104] _Memoir of the Life of the late Reverend Increase Mather, D. D._,
London, 1725, pp. 10–12.
[105] Whitmore, _Andros Tracts_, I. ix. Duncan, p. 106.
[106] Pedigree, in _Andros Tracts_, I. vi. Duncan, p. 588. From
_Calendar of State Papers, Am. and W. Indies_, we learn that Andros
saw service in the West Indies, being major in a regiment of foot,
commanded by Sir Tobias Bridge, which left England in March, 1667,
and arrived in Barbadoes in April. He returned to England in 1668, as
bearer of despatches and letters to the government, and was in England
in September of that year. Whether he returned to Barbadoes is not
evident, but he was in England in Jan., 1671, and throughout the year.
The regiment was disbanded and four companies sent to England, arriving
there Oct. 5, 1671, and were incorporated in the new dragoon regiment
being raised for Prince Rupert, to which Andros received his commission
Sept. 14, 1671. This chronology is irreconcilable with that given in
the pedigree or by Duncan.
[107] For relations of Lord Craven and Elizabeth, see Miss Benger’s
_Memoir of the Queen of Bohemia_.
[108] Duncan, p. 588. _Calendar of State Papers, America and the West
Indies_ (1661–1668), 1427, 1436, 1439, 1476, 1760, 1761, 1762, 1824,
1839, (1669–1674), 394, 545.
[109] Duncan, pp. 588–89. _America and W. Indies_ (1669–1674), 554,
559, 625, 639, 791. Mackinnon, _Origin and Services of the Coldstream
Guards_, i. 185.
[110] Tupper, _History of Guernsey_, 2d Ed., London, 1876. He
says (p. 392): “Edmund Andros had succeeded his father as bailiff
(_bailli_) in 1674, with power to nominate a lieutenant during his long
non-residence; he was also a colonel of dragoons, and after his return
from his successive North American governments, he was constituted
lieutenant-governor of Guernsey by Queen Anne, who dispensed with his
executing the office of bailiff and accepted Eleazar Le Marchant as
lieutenant-bailiff.” Apparently he had some trouble at first from the
governor of the island, Christopher, Lord Hatton, for we find (p. 377)
a royal order sustaining Andros, and forbidding Lord Hatton to disturb
him in the office of bailiff.
[111] _N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 215. The boundaries stated in this
Commission are as follows: “All that part of y^e Maine Land of New
England beginning at a certaine place called or knowne by y^e name of
St. Croix next adjoyneing to new Scotland in America and from thence
along y^e sea Coast unto a certaine place called Pemaquin or Pemaquid
and soe up the River thereof to y^e furthest head of the same, as it
tendeth northwards and extending from thence to the River Kinebequi
and soe upwards by y^e shortest course to y^e river Canada northwards.
And also all that Island or Islands comonly called or knowne by y^e
several names of Matowacks or Long Island scituate lying and being
towards y^e West of Cape Codd and y^e Narrow Higansetts abutting upon
y^e maine land betweene y^e two rivers there called or knowne by y^e
severall names of Conecticut and Hudsons River together also w^{th}
y^e said river called Hudsons River and all y^e land from y^e West
side of Conecticut River to y^e East side of Delaware Bay, and also
all those severall Islands called or knowne by y^e name of Martine
mynyards and Nantukes otherwise Nantukett, together with all the lands
islands soiles rivers harbours mines mineralls quarryes woods marshes
waters lakes fishings hawking hunting and fowling and all royaltyes and
profitts comôdityes and hereditaments to the said several islands lands
and premisses, belonging and apperteyning with their and every of their
appurtenancies.”
[112] For Andros’s own account of the first three years of his
administration, see _N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 254–257. For the surrender
of New York, _Documentary History of New York_, iii. 43; Andros’s
report on state of the province, i. 60.
[113] That this was recognized by men qualified to judge, _vide_ letter
from Lieutenant-Colonel Talcott to Andros, _Connecticut Colonial
Records_ (1678–89), p. 399; _vide_ also _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, i. 99;
_Conn. Col. Rec._ (1665–78), pp. 397, 404, 461, 492. For Andros’s own
official report of the assistance he rendered New England in Philips’s
war, see _N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 264, 265. For remarks upon the
contrasted Indian policies, see Brodhead, _Hist. New York_, ii. 281–290.
[114] _Conn. Col. Rec._ (1678–89), p. 283. _N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 236.
[115] _Conn. Col. Rec._ (1665–78), pp. 260, 334, 335, 339–43, 578–86.
_N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 254.
Governor Dongan’s jealousy of Andros makes his statement of Andros’s
intentions ten years before questionable authority, especially when
it is remembered that at the time he made the statement he was busily
engaged in trying to persuade the people of Connecticut to ask to be
annexed to New York, rather than to Massachusetts under Andros. Under
these circumstances, one cannot help suspecting his testimony as to
memoranda left behind by Andros, who was one of the most cautious and
methodical of men. _N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 415. If Andros intended to
surprise the post, he certainly was very ill-judged to send notice of
his claim beforehand. For the best account of these proceedings, see
Brodhead, _Hist. of N. Y._, ii. 284–286.
[116] Brodhead, _Hist. of New York_, ii. 303–306. _New Jersey
Archives_, i. 156–347.
[117] _Conn. Col. Records_ (1678–89), 283–285.
[118] _Mass. Rec._, iv. (2), 359–361. Brodhead, _History of New York_,
ii. 127.
[119] _N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 257 ff.
[120] _N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 254, 258, 259, 266, 267. See also
Randolph’s report in the same vol. 242. Hutchinson, _Coll._, 476, 490.
Brodhead, ii. 290. Mather’s _Brief History of the War_, 117, 129, 254.
[121] _N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 264, 265.
[122] _N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 235, 256.
[123] _N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 260–265.
[124] _N. Y. Col. Doc._, 279–284, 302–308. For Andros’s answer, 308–313.
[125] _N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 314–316.
[126] Duncan, 589. _N. Y. Col. Doc._, ii. 741. Hutchinson, _Coll._, 542.
[127] Whitmore, _Andros Tracts_, I. xlix., Note D. “In an old pedigree
written about A. D. 1687 by Charles Andros uncle of the governor, and
still preserved in the family, we find:
‘The 13th April 1683, the King, Charles II. gave the charge of Gentleman
in ordinary of his privy chamber’ to Sir Edmund, and ‘the 6th day of
the month of June 1685, the King, James II. gave a Commission to the
above Sir Edmund Andros to command a troop of Cavalry to go against the
rebels in England.’ This refers of course to Monmouth’s Rebellion. ‘In
August, 1685, he was made Lieut.-Colonel of Lord Scarsdale’s cavalry.’”
[128] Palfrey, _Hist. of New England_, iii. 319, 334. In 1678,
Andros had written Blathwayt that there would be danger of Indian
difficulties, “so long as each petty colony hath or assumes absolute
power of peace and war, which cannot be managed by such popular
governments as was evident in the late Indian wars in New England.”
_N. Y. Col. Doc._, iii. 271. Earlier still, Gov. Winslow of Plymouth
had told Randolph that New England could never flourish until its
several colonies were placed under his Majesty’s immediate government
(Hutchinson, _Coll._, p. 509), and Randolph had urged the matter upon
the council in his celebrated report. Hutch., _Coll._, 477–503.
[129] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, 4th Series, vol. ii.
[130] _Rhode Island Col. Records_, iii. 175–197. Chalmers, _Political
Annals_, 278.
[131] Whitmore, I. xxvii. _Cambridge Almanac_, 1687.
[132] Whitmore, I. xxvii. Goldwin Smith, in his recent work on _The
United States_, seems to suppose that this occurred in New Hampshire.
[133] _Conn. Col. Records_ (1678–89), 376–378.
[134] _Conn. Col. Records_ (1678–89), 389.
[135] Chalmers, _Political Annals_, 297, 298. _General History of
Connecticut_, by a Gentleman of the Province (Rev. S. Peters, D. D.),
London, 1781.