“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.