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.