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. The separatist 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_” which reads like a mockery, would have been as dear to a united people as the “_E pluribus unum_” which they afterwards adopted.