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 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.