III.SIR EDMUND ANDROS.
Thecasual reader of the usual American histories will receive from them an impression that Sir Edmund Andros was a merciless tyrant, whose administration was only redeemed from being utterly disastrous by its imbecility. Even Doyle in his first volume ofThe English in Americadescribes him as a wretched “placeman,” though in his later volumes he somewhat modifies this unfavorable criticism and describes him as respectable but stupid. Yet the fact remains, that the authorities in England held him sufficiently in esteem to send him to New York as lieutenant-governor under the Duke of York, and to New England as governor and captain-general of the united Dominion, which included New York and New Jersey as well as New England proper; and after a complete revolution in politics in EnglandAndros was the man selected for the best position in the gift of the Board of Trade and Plantations, the governorship of Virginia. A man who had served the Stuarts well and faithfully, even incurring the odium which naturally attached to the agents of their unpopular measures, must have exhibited something more than dull stupidity, to recommend him to the officials of the Revolution. The career of a public servant under so many administrations must, at any rate, be of interest to all students of American history.
It is the unfortunate fate of many excellent and useful officials, that, in the performance of their duty to the state, they are obliged to render themselves personally unpopular. It may freely be admitted that the British crown was generally unfortunate in the selection of its representatives in the American colonies; but, by a strange injustice of history, many of the utterly bad ones have had their faults forgotten or condoned, while one of the most able and efficient of them all, in spite of the careful and scholarly works in which his character has been vindicated, remains pilloried in the popular histories of the American colonies as a tyrant and oppressor.
The caustic pens of the Mathers and the bitter spite of the early New England historians have drawn for us an Andros whose haughty and vindictive face rises before the mind whenever the name is mentioned. Local patriotism in Connecticut has created a series of poetical myths in regard to his administration, which tend to obscure the sober truth of history. New York has more grateful memories of the governor who secured and extended her dominion and by his wise and steady policy protected her from her most dangerous foes. Virginia is less grateful as yet, the unfortunate quarrel of Andros with the clergy sufficing to obscure the many material benefits conferred on clergy and laity alike by his wise administration. It is a curious fact, that both in Virginia and in New England Andros failed to please the ecclesiastics, different as they were; but, by those who are not prejudiced in favor of spiritual domination, this will hardly be considered as a reproach.
The true reason of the hatred of Andros in New England, and of his failure for so long to obtain justice in New York, was that he was the agent appointed to carry out the plan of uniting the scattered and discordant colonies into one strong Dominion. Theseparatist spirit of those who preferred their petty local privileges to the benefits of the union, that spirit which has been so dangerous to the country throughout the whole course of its history, was at that time successful, owing to the entirely disconnected circumstance that the consolidation was urged by the ministers of a king who was misgoverning his people in England. In carrying out these measures, the letter of the law seemed to the colonists to be strained to the utmost as against what they considered their popular rights, and the fate of corporations in England alarmed the similar chartered bodies in America. James II., by his foolish and wicked projects in England, discredited his really statesmanlike object in America; the union, so desirable in itself, was discredited by the methods used to effect it, and the narrow theory of colonial integrity and independence survived to plague the descendants of the men who maintained it. It is important always to discriminate between the object sought and the means used to effect it. Had the consolidation been successful, James would be looked back upon as a public benefactor, and the motto from Claudian upon the seal of the Dominion, “Nunquam libertas gratior exstat” whichreads like a mockery, would have been as dear to a united people as the “E pluribus unum” which they afterwards adopted.
New England historians have always found it difficult to admit that there could be any good in a man who adhered to the fortunes of the Stuarts, or who worshipped in the church over which Laud had been primate. But the time that has elapsed since the period of struggle should have mitigated, if not utterly extinguished, the ancestral hostility of Puritan and Prelatist. Men are learning (under the influence of commemorative festivities) to revise their opinions in regard to the harshness and unloveliness of the Fathers of New England; and it is to be hoped that, before long, justice may be done to the honesty of conviction and conscientiousness of purpose that inspired those who have been so long described as “malignants.” Is it too much to hope that men will be able to see that the Englishmen who charged with Rupert, and the Englishmen who prayed and smote with Oliver, were both contending for a principle which was dearer to them than life—the principle of stern resistance to the violation of constitutional law? If we honor the men who hated the arbitrary government of the Stuarts, it isunfair to condemn those who hated the far more arbitrary government of the Rump and the Protector.
Edmund Andros was born in London, December 6, 1637, of a family that was eminent among the adherents of Charles I.102His father, Amias Andros, was the head of the family; he possessed an estate upon the island of Guernsey, and was royal bailiff of that island. His mother was Elizabeth Stone, whose brother, Sir Robert Stone, was cup-bearer to the unfortunate Elizabeth the dispossessed Queen of Bohemia and Electress Palatine, and was also captain of a troop of horse in Holland.
At the time of Edmund’s birth, his father was marshal of ceremonies to the king;103and the boy was brought up in the royal household, very possibly on terms of intimacy with the young princes whom he afterwards served, who were only slightly his seniors. For a time he is said to have been a page at court; but if this be true, it must have been when he was extremely young, as court life ceased to have charms, if not absolutely to exist, after the civil war broke out in 1642, and at this time the boy was but five years old.
Faithful to the fortunes of his masters in discouragement and defeat, we find the ladin Guernsey with his father, defending Castle Cornet manfully against the Parliament, and, after its surrender, receiving his first lessons in the field in Holland under Prince Henry of Nassau. (It is a curious fact, trifling in appearance, but possibly not without significance, that during the last year of the Commonwealth, and at the time of the restoration, Increase Mather was chaplain of some of the troops in Guernsey, and may have, even at that early date, formed the bitter prejudice that is so evident in his later actions.)104The services of the Andros family were so conspicuous in this period of trial and discouragement, that Edmund with his father and his uncle were specially exempted by name from a general pardon that was issued to the people of Guernsey by Charles II. on his restoration, on the ground that they “have, to their great honor, during the late rebellion, continued inviolably faithful to his majesty, and consequently have no need to be included in this general pardon.”105
The young soldier, who found himself restored to home and safety at the age of twenty-three, had passed a stormy youth; his natural boyish loyalty had been strengthened by what he had suffered on account of it. He had seen those whom he most respectedand revered dethroned and exiled, living as pensioners on the grudging bounty of inhospitable princes. He had seen the legal government of England subverted by force of arms by men whose professions of their respect for law were never louder than when they were overthrowing it, and had seen England ground down under the harsh rule of a military despotism. He had seen the orderly and regular services of the Church of England proscribed, its ministers turned out of their parishes to make room, not only for severe Presbyterians and iconoclastic Independents, but for ranting sectaries who made the name of religion a by-word and a mockery. It cannot be wondered that the young cavalier grew up deeply impressed with the horrors of rebellion and usurped authority, and with the conviction that much might be sacrificed for the sake of lawful and regular government, or that, being as he was a member of the church that had been proscribed and persecuted during the reign of the self-styled “godly,” he should have been rendered all the warmer in his attachment to her orderly and decent rights and ceremonies, as by law established.
It should be remembered that the severity shown to the Dissenters at the Restorationcame largely from their close association with the civil war and the government of the Commonwealth. The cloak of religion had been made to cover the overthrow of the liberties of Parliament, the killing of the king, and the rule of Cromwell; and it is not unnatural, though most regrettable, that the victorious cavaliers should have failed to make the proper distinction between dissent and rebellion.
A knowledge of these early conditions of the life of Andros is necessary for a comprehension of his character. They show the influences which tended to form in him his most notable characteristics: loyalty to his sovereign, a passion for regularity and legal methods in the management of affairs, and a zeal for the Church of England. The promotion of the young soldier followed quickly, as he continued to display the fidelity and capacity of which his boyhood had given promise. His uncle’s position in the household of the Queen of Bohemia determined the direction of his promotion, and the nephew was made gentleman-in-ordinary in the same household in 1660, a position more honorable than remunerative, which was soon terminated by her death in 1662. His military training was developed by the war with the Dutch, inwhich he won further distinction and made his first acquaintance with America and American affairs.106The position he had held in the court of the exiled queen won him a wife in 1671, in the person of a young kinswoman of the Earl of Craven, who had been the devoted servant, if not the husband, of Elizabeth.107This Lord Craven was the one officer of the army who remained faithful to James II. to the last, and, though eighty years old, put himself at the head of his regiment of body-guards to defend the king from insult, when William of Orange was already in London.
The court positions held by Andros in the reign of Charles II. are not those of a brilliant young cavalier, or a roystering blade of the Restoration who only cared for place and plunder, wine and women; they indicate rather that passionate devotion to the house of Stuart, which the most worthless of that line were always able to inspire, devotion generally recompensed by gross ingratitude. His marriage was evidently, from the prominence Andros himself gives to it, a high connection for a simple country gentleman to make, but it did not have the effect of detaching him from a soldier’s life; for in the same year he appears still as major of theregiment that had been in Barbadoes, and even at that time he had obtained the reputation of being well versed in American affairs.108
When this regiment was disbanded, Major Andros received a new commission in a dragoon regiment that was raised at that time for Prince Rupert, in which his four companies were incorporated, the first English regiment ever armed with a bayonet.109This was the period when the proprietors of Carolina were drawing up their remarkable feudal constitution and dividing up lands and titles among themselves. Lord Craven, who was one of the proprietors, seeing the interest that Andros took in American affairs, procured him a patent conferring upon him the title and dignity of a margrave, together with four baronies containing some forty-eight thousand acres, to support the title. This gift, however, was only valuable as a token of his friend’s esteem.
At his father’s death in 1674, he succeeded him in his seigniory of Sausmarez and in the office of bailiff of Guernsey.110He was not, however, fated to dwell in quiet and cultivate his father’s acres; for at the end of the second Dutch war, when his regiment was mustered out of service, he was selected,probably on account of his familiarity with colonial affairs, to receive the surrender of New York and its dependencies, in accordance with the treaty of peace. The territory thus recovered had been granted by Charles II., at the time of its first seizure in 1664, to his brother, the Duke of York; and Andros, who must have been personally known to them both, was now appointed lieutenant-governor of the palatine province. His commission bears date of July 1, 1674.111He was well fitted for the position. His residence in Holland had made him familiar with the people with whom he was chiefly to deal, and his acquaintance with American affairs stood him in good stead in matters of general policy, as his administration soon disclosed; while his connection with the court and with the royal family enabled him to act as a confidential agent of the Duke. He arrived in New York in November accompanied by his wife, and after some formalities entered upon his government. His treatment of the conquered Dutch was marked with great tact and judgment, and rarely has the transfer of a colony of one nation to the rule of another been effected with so little friction or disturbance.112
In regard to the serious problem of thetreatment of the Indians he was far-sighted enough to continue the wise and judicious policy of his predecessors in regard to the powerful and dangerous confederation of the Iroquois or Five Nations. The importance of this can hardly be over-estimated in its bearing upon the subsequent history of the country. It is true that this policy was not original with him; he took it as a legacy from the Dutch in 1674, as Nicolls had done ten years before; but it may be said that the honest and judicious administration of Indian affairs did much to save the English colonies from being wiped out of existence by a general Indian war.113If the Iroquois had been roused to go on the war-path, as were the unfortunate Indians of New England, it is hard to see what could have saved the scattered settlements. And again, if Andros, by a tortuous and deceitful policy like that of the United Colonies towards the New England Indians, had thrown the Iroquois into the arms of the French, who were only too anxious for reconciliation with them, there is little probability that the valor of Wolfe would ever have had a chance for success on the Plains of Abraham.
As a provincial governor Andros made many enemies; but they were mainly in thecolonies lying adjacent to his own. The patent of New York was very extensive, and covered territory which the neighboring colonies claimed had been already ceded to them.114Connecticut had vague claims all the way to the South Sea, and had been devoting its energies during the short space of its history to edging along its frontier further and further to the westward, in spite of the indignant protests of the Dutch. Settlements had been formed on Long Island, which was undoubtedly beyond its limits. Now, the dispute was between rival colonies of the same country; and considering the uncertainty of the title of Connecticut, Andros must be allowed to have acted with propriety and moderation. He succeeded in making good the title of the Duke to Long Island and Fisher’s Island, where the Connecticut authorities were attempting to exercise jurisdiction; but the boundary line upon the mainland remained an unsettled question even down to our own times. At Saybrook, Andros did his duty in asserting formally his principal’s claim, but was wise enough not to press a question which would have caused great difficulties between the Colonies.115
With the New Jersey settlers he had still more difficulty, as they had various grantsand patents from the Duke himself to plead for their justification; but he pursued a straightforward course, standing up, as he was bound to do, for the rights of his principal, unless they could be legally shown to have been granted away. His passion for regular and orderly business methods soon manifested itself, and his letters reveal the indignation of a man of affairs at the utterly unbusiness-like ways of the people with whom he had to do.116
Besides his commission as Governor of New York, he had undoubtedly private instructions as to how he should comport himself towards his uneasy neighbors, the New England colonies. He was anxious to keep on good terms with Connecticut, as New York was largely dependent upon that colony for provisions; and his letters to the Connecticut authorities are mostly of a friendly character, though written in a tone of superiority which undoubtedly gave serious offence. On hearing that the people of Hartford were harboring one of the regicides, he addressed a very sharp letter to the colonial authorities, to which they replied in a tone of injured innocence, which is quite edifying, asking him for the names of those who had so maligned their loyalty.117
It was impossible for the Connecticut Republicans to realize the profound horror which the execution of Charles had caused, and the depth of the feeling of hatred and repugnance which the perpetrators of that audacious act had inspired. Even after William and Mary were on the throne, and James II. was an exile, it was found that a regicide, of the character and position of Ludlow, dared not show himself in England; and during the Restoration period the feeling was intense. The act was regarded by the majority of Englishmen as sacrilege, as well as murder, for it had destroyed not only what was called the sacred majesty of the king, but the sacred majesty of the legal government. To Andros the news that Goffe and Whalley were escaping justice by the connivance of the authorities was horrible, and must have suggested doubts, if he had not found them already, of the policy of allowing men who would have been excluded from all office in England to rule the king’s colonies in America.
A more serious difficulty arose with Massachusetts, whose authorities had ventured to send commissioners to the Mohawks to treat directly with them as an independent nation—an act at utter variance with the policy ofthe Dutch and English, who regarded them as under their authority, and which, therefore, was liable to plunge the colony in war.118The ostentatious assumption of independence by the colony of Massachusetts, its claim to be free from the laws of England, and the spirit displayed by many of its leaders, which must have seemed seditious to the legal mind of Andros, made it necessary for him to watch very carefully any affairs in which they were concerned. His attitude brought upon him the hostility of the colony, and its authorities asserted, and constantly reiterated, the charge that it was at Albany, by his connivance, that Philip’s Indians had procured supplies of arms.119
This charge, naturally, was most offensive to the loyal spirit of Andros, who had fretted a good deal under his forced inactivity in the war; and he repeatedly denied it, challenging his accusers for proof of their assertions, proof which they were absolutely unable to supply. They continued, however, to insinuate this malicious statement, and it was long believed by the people of Massachusetts, and led undoubtedly to much of the hostility between them and Andros during his subsequent rule in New England.120In spite of their aspersions, he continued steadily in hisprudent policy, keeping the Mohawks quiet on one side, and, by vigorous measures against the Indians in Maine, protecting his personal enemies from inroads upon the other.121His government of New York was successful; the country remained in peace; its quiet contrasted strongly with the troubles in New England, and the revenues of the colony were honestly collected and wisely administered. To those who hold the commonly received opinion of Andros, it will seem strange to find that he urged upon the Duke of York the desirability of allowing the colonists the privileges of a representative assembly.122In November 1677, he returned to England on a leave of absence, remaining there until May of the following year.
While in England he received the honor of knighthood, a sign that his labors were appreciated, and gave, in the form of answers to the inquiries of the Committee for Trade and Plantations, statements in regard to American affairs which are of great value as exhibiting the condition of the colonies, and especially of New York, at that time. His replies about New England are such as we might expect from a man of his character and position, and disclose no hostility.
He says: “The acts of trade and navigaconare sayed, & is generally beleeved, not to be observed in ye Collonyes as they ought”—a statement which is certainly moderate if not grammatical; and also: “I doe not find but the generality of the Magistrates and people are well affected to ye king and kingdome, but most, knowing noe governmt then their owne, think it best, and are wedded and oppiniate for it. And ye magistrates & others in place, chosen by the people, think that they are oblidged to assert & maintain sd Government all they cann, and are Church members, and like so to be, chosen, and to continue without any considerable alteracon and change there, and depend upon the people to justifie them in their actings.” For a description of a puritan republic by a royalist and churchman, this is remarkably fair and correct.123
The last two years of his government in New York were vexed with difficulties with some of the English merchants of the province, who were probably pinched by Andros’s strict and methodical, and possibly also narrow and literal, administration of the revenue laws. He was openly accused by them, and by other discontented parties, to the Duke of York as dishonest in his management of the revenue, and was summoned home to answerto the charges. A special commissioner, who was absurdly incompetent for the position, was sent to investigate the accounts, and he took the side of the merchants in his report.124Andros, however, was able to answer satisfactorily every charge against him, and boldly demanded a thorough examination of all his acts as governor. He was examined before Churchill and Jeffreys, neither of whom would have been likely at that time to have let any one go free who had defrauded the Duke, and they reported that Andros “had not misbehaved himself, or broken the trust reposed in him by his royal highness in the administration of his government, nor doth it appear that he hath anyway defrauded or mismanaged his revenue.”125
Though completely exonerated, he was not at this time reinstated in the governorship, and the next five years of his life were passed in England at court, where he obtained an honorable position in the household, and in his estates in Guernsey, to which in 1684 the island of Alderney was added by royal grant at a rent of thirteen shillings.126In 1685 he received a military command once more, and served in the campaign in the west of England against Monmouth;and the silence of the enemies in regard to any acts of cruelty at this time is a high tribute, for, if they had known of any, they would undoubtedly have held him up for abhorrence as a persecutor.127Later in the year he was made lieutenant-colonel of the Princess Anne of Denmark’s regiment of horse, under the command of the Earl of Scarsdale.
The accession of James, under whom he had acted previously, made it likely that Andros would again receive employment. In spite of the fact that he was a devoted adherent of the Church of England, the king, who was attempting to restore the Roman worship, gave him his full confidence, and entrusted him with the work of carrying out a project which had been for some time before the minds of the colonial authorities in England—the consolidation of New England into a single province. This was no new idea of James II., but had been discussed for several years; and it was a plan that had much to recommend it.
As early as 1678, the Lords of Trade and Plantations had been brought to see the need of a general governor and a fit judicature in the colonies, for the determining of differences; and in 1681 Culpepper had urged theproject. A preliminary measure had been adopted of appointing a general revenue officer for all the American colonies, with the power of selecting his own subordinates.128The notorious Randolph, a man of strict honesty and probity of life, but unable to see more than his own side of any question, was appointed deputy surveyor-general over the New England colonies, and devoted his energies to obtaining the forfeiture of the patent of Massachusetts. The astuteness and bribery of the Massachusetts agents were able to defer the evil day until the autumn of 1684, when the charter was vacated.129This left Massachusetts in the hands of the crown; the next problem was to obtain the vacating of the more regular charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Writs ofquo warrantowere issued, and sent to the colonies respectively; and the submission of Rhode Island, after some decent protests, was obtained.130
Andros was chosen by the king for the important post of governor-general, not, as Palfrey insinuates, because he was peculiarly disagreeable to Massachusetts, and so likely to carry out the objects of the king; but because the king knew him personally, and knew him to be a man of capacity and integrity. It is absurd to suppose that James,who was an experienced man of business himself, and more familiar with colonial affairs than any king of England before or since, would have intentionally selected a man for the purpose who would endanger the success of the undertaking. Colonel Kirke, who had been actually designated as governor, had been withdrawn as disagreeable to New England. It is unnecessary here to enter into any arguments to show the advantage that would have accrued to the colonies if this judicious plan had been successful. New England might have been spared much wasteful legislation and ruinous financial experiments, and would have been joined together in one strong province, instead of being composed of several weak and jealous colonies; the union, the benefits of which it took the colonists so long to learn, would have been facilitated; and a strong and united front would have been presented to the French, who were beginning now to threaten the existence of the English colonies. The Stuarts, it is true, were pensioners and allies of the King of France in Europe, but in America they were his natural and inevitable enemies; and James, who, unlike his brother, felt deeply the shame of his vassalage to the French, was anxious to preventany extension of French power in America.
Andros arrived in Boston in December 1686, and was received in a most loyal and even enthusiastic manner.131A large portion of the Massachusetts people had grown weary of the rule of the oligarchy, and Andros was welcomed as bringing with him the protection of English law. His government had been constituted in detail in his commission, and he at once proceeded to organize it and to levy the taxes necessary for its support. Deprived of the representative assembly in which the semblance of free government had been preserved, one of the towns attempted to resist the tax. The leaders of the movement were tried fairly and legally, and were fined and imprisoned for their attempt at resistance.132After this no attempts were made to dispute the laws of the new government, until the revolution which overthrew all legal authority in the colony broke out in 1689.
It was very important for Andros that the submission of Connecticut should be obtained without conflict, as Massachusetts, like New York, was largely dependent upon the neighboring colony for food. The Connecticut authorities fenced and parried, interposed delays, and showed themselves, as they alwaysdid, clever men of business, exhibiting qualities that doubtless raised Governor Treat and Secretary Allyn in Governor Andros’s estimation. Finally, however, when further resistance was dangerous, a letter was sent which could be construed either as a surrender or as not a surrender, so that they might have a safe retreat in any case; and on the strength of this letter Andros assumed the government.133The period that follows is sometimes described as the “usurpation,” but there is nothing in the history of the times to give one the impression that the government of Andros in Connecticut was not as regular and legal a government as the colony ever had. If Andros had not been overthrown in Massachusetts by a carefully-prepared rebellion, which left the colonies without a governor, it is not likely that either Connecticut or Rhode Island would have ventured to resume its charter. Andros came to Connecticut in October 1687, travelling by way of Providence and New London, and from New London across country through what are now Salem, Colchester, and Glastonbury, to the Rocky Hill ferry. He was attended by a “company of gentlemen and grenadiers to the number of sixty or upwards,” and was met at the ferry by a troopof horse “which conducted him honorably from the ferry through Waterfield (Wethersfield) up to Hartford.”134Of the transactions at Hartford we have the dramatic story of local tradition, the only proof of which was the existence of an oak tree said to have been the receptacle of the charter. For this romantic story there is absolutely no contemporary authority, and the details are very improbable. The charter very possibly may have been concealed, and very possibly in the Charter Oak, but the incidents of the familiar story are, if known, not mentioned by any writers of the time.135The records of the colony contain simply the formal but expressive entry: “His Excellency, SrEdmund Andross, Knt., Capt. General & Govrof his MatiesTerritorie and Dominion in New England, by order from his MatieJames the second, King of England, Scotland, France & Ireland, the 31 of October, 1687, took into his hands the government of this colony of Conecticott, it being by his Matieannexed to Massachusets & other colonys under his Excelencies Goverment. FINIS.”136
Bulkeley, in the “Will and Doom,” relates that Andros was met at Hartford by the trained bands of divers towns who united to pay him their respects.
“Being arrived at Hartford,” he continues, “he is greeted and caressed by the Govrand assistants, and some say, though I will not confidently assert it, that the Govrand one of his assistants did declare to him the vote of the GenlCourt for their submission to him. However, after some treaty between his Excellency and them that evening, he was, the next morning, waited on and conducted by the Govr, Deputy Govr, Assistants and Deputies, to the Court Chamber, and by the Govrhimself directed to the Govr’sseat, and being there seated (the late Govr, Assistants and Deputys being present & the Chamber thronged as full of people as it was capable of), His Excellency declared that his Majesty had,according to their desire, given him a commission to come and take on him the government of Connecticut, and caused his commission to be publicly read. That being done, his Excellency showed that it was his Majesty’s pleasure to make the late Govrand Captain John Allyn members of his council, and called upon them to take their oaths, which they did forthwith, and all this in that public and great assembly,nemine contradicente, and only one man said that they first desired that they might continue as they were.”“After this his Excellency proceeded to erect courts of Judicature, and constituted the said John Allyn, Esq. & Judge of the inferiour Court of Common Pleas for the county of Hartford, and all others who before had been assistants, & dwelling in the same County, he now made Justices of the Peace for the said County.“From hence his Excellency passed through all the rest of the countys of N. Haven, N. London and Fairfield, settling the Government, was everywhere chearfully and gratefully received, and erected the King’s Courts as aforesaid, wherein those who were before in the office of Govr, Deputy Govrand Assistants were made Judges of the Pleas, or Justices of the Peace, not one excepted nor (finally) excepting, but accepting the same, some few others being by his Excellency added to them in the several Countys, not without, but by & with their own advice and approbation, and all sworn by the oaths (of allegience and) of their respective offices, to do equal justice to rich and poor, after the Laws & Customs of the Realm of England, and of this his Majesty’s dominion.”“The Secretary, who was well acquainted with all the transactions of the General Court, and very well understood their meaning and intent in all, delivered their common seal to Sir E. A.”137
“Being arrived at Hartford,” he continues, “he is greeted and caressed by the Govrand assistants, and some say, though I will not confidently assert it, that the Govrand one of his assistants did declare to him the vote of the GenlCourt for their submission to him. However, after some treaty between his Excellency and them that evening, he was, the next morning, waited on and conducted by the Govr, Deputy Govr, Assistants and Deputies, to the Court Chamber, and by the Govrhimself directed to the Govr’sseat, and being there seated (the late Govr, Assistants and Deputys being present & the Chamber thronged as full of people as it was capable of), His Excellency declared that his Majesty had,according to their desire, given him a commission to come and take on him the government of Connecticut, and caused his commission to be publicly read. That being done, his Excellency showed that it was his Majesty’s pleasure to make the late Govrand Captain John Allyn members of his council, and called upon them to take their oaths, which they did forthwith, and all this in that public and great assembly,nemine contradicente, and only one man said that they first desired that they might continue as they were.”
“After this his Excellency proceeded to erect courts of Judicature, and constituted the said John Allyn, Esq. & Judge of the inferiour Court of Common Pleas for the county of Hartford, and all others who before had been assistants, & dwelling in the same County, he now made Justices of the Peace for the said County.
“From hence his Excellency passed through all the rest of the countys of N. Haven, N. London and Fairfield, settling the Government, was everywhere chearfully and gratefully received, and erected the King’s Courts as aforesaid, wherein those who were before in the office of Govr, Deputy Govrand Assistants were made Judges of the Pleas, or Justices of the Peace, not one excepted nor (finally) excepting, but accepting the same, some few others being by his Excellency added to them in the several Countys, not without, but by & with their own advice and approbation, and all sworn by the oaths (of allegience and) of their respective offices, to do equal justice to rich and poor, after the Laws & Customs of the Realm of England, and of this his Majesty’s dominion.”
“The Secretary, who was well acquainted with all the transactions of the General Court, and very well understood their meaning and intent in all, delivered their common seal to Sir E. A.”137
Connecticut under Andros passed a period of peace and quiet. Governor Treat and secretary Allyn were made members of the council and judges, besides being entrusted with military commands, and everything went on quietly. There was an evident disposition to favor Connecticut, and every reason why it should be favored. We hear of no complaint against the government or the laws. The worst hardship recorded isthe settling of intestate property according to English law, instead of the customs of the colony. It is true that town meetings were forbidden except once a year, but there were frequent sessions of the courts held, so that the citizens were not deprived of all the common interests of their lives. With Allyn the governor was on most friendly terms, modifying several regulations at his suggestions, and entrusting him largely with the management of Connecticut affairs.138To make a proper catalogue of miseries, the Connecticut historian, Trumbull, is obliged to borrow and relate doleful stories from Massachusetts, not asserting that they happened in Connecticut, but certainly producing that impression.139
There were many reasons why Connecticut did not resent the government 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 thepeople 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 compelledto 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 realgravamenof 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 ofmalignant despotism.140It 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.141In 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; butfew 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 badlyto 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.142The 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 noreason 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. Theparticularists 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.144Hutchinson 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 aptitudefor 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 evidencehe 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.148He 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 Androsappears 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 opinionthat 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: