[150] Duncan, 589. “Sir Edmund was for many years at the head of a mixed and adventurous population, in newly settled and important colonies, distant from the mother country, a station at all time arduous, but immeasurably so in the age of revolutions in which he lived, when the institutions longest established were not exempt from the common jeopardy, and unusual energy was called for in all, wherever situated, by whom the royal authority was to be asserted. He resolutely encountered the duties and responsibilities of his high office throughout the long course of his career, and was successful in resisting, in his military as well as in his civil capacity, the intrigues and hostilities of the neighboring French and Indians, to which he was continually exposed. By some of the chroniclers of the period, who wrote, doubtless, not uninfluenced by its partisanship, he has been represented, in his earlier government under James the Second, as an abettor of tyranny; but by others of them, appearing to have possessed the best means of judging of the circumstances under which he acted, his conduct has been liberally estimated. His later administration, under William the Third, is allowed to have been irreproachable. All the colonies advanced greatly in improvement whilst under his charge; and the fact that he was distinguished by the marked approval and successive appointments of his several sovereigns, after, no less than before, the Revolution, cannot but be interpreted as the strongest testimonial in his favor, and highly to the honor of his reputation.” Chalmers remarks (_Political Annals_, i. 422): “The charges of greatest magnitude were not the faults of the governor, but of the constitution; the smaller accusations arose from actions directly contrary to his instructions. Did he act contrary to them and to his commission, he had been the most faithless of servants, and most criminal of men. But he did not. For, when the agents of the province impeached him before William, they accused him not of acting inconsistent with either, but of having exercised an authority unconstitutional and tyrannous. His conduct was approved of by James; and he was again appointed a colonial governor by William, because he equally appeared to him worthy of trust. Unhappily oppressed by a real tyranny, the colonists of those days beheld every action with diseased eyes, and their distempers have descended in a great measure to their historians, who have retailed political fictions as indubitable truths.” And again: “What a spectacle does the administration of Andros hold up to mankind for their instruction; under a form of government, plainly arbitrary and tyrannous, more real liberty was actually enjoyed than under the boasted system, which appeared so fair.” [151] _Doc. Hist. of N. Y._, i. 179. IV. THE LOYALISTS.