These hardy fishermen, whose manly virtues, despite their human failings, find a staunch advocate in Jenness, “were not very deeply moved by questions of government, or statutes, or courts.” A considerable proportion of criminal complaints against them were for resisting, assaulting, and reviling the officers of the law, and treating with contempt the awe-inspiring badge of his office. However, this feeling of contempt for the minions of the law was not confined to the inhabitants of the rocky isles, for it is on record that Maj. William Vaughan of Portsmouth, N. H., seized the truncheon of the king’s officer who was on the point of serving a writ upon him, and beat him over the head with it. And as well, that Andrew Wiggin of Stratham, N. H., threw Lieut.-Gov. Walter Barefoote on the blazing coals in his own fireplace, and, in addition, sat on him, breaking some of his ribs, knocking out some of his teeth, and partially roasting his body. So, for a similar reason, on the Shoals, Abraham Kelly and others were arrested for reviling a constable and attempting to assault him, and even Roger himself, the ancient magistrate and taverner, “was presented in Court for selling without due license to a party of fishermen, while playing nine-pins on Hog Island, twelve gallons of wine which they drank in one day.” An appetite for liquids like this in our day, and with our population, would surely create a famine in that line. Still, strange as it may seem now, in those good old times, and for a century later, the great man of the town, as a rule, was the tavern-keeper, and Roger was not an exception. His name headed many weighty petitions in favor of, or protesting against, every measure respectively beneficial or injurious to his fellow-citizens of the rocky island. That he was an educated man is apparent from the positions he held, as well as the location of his name at the head of other signers on petitions. In 1689 he was one of many petitioners to the Massachusetts General Court for the appointment of a suitable person to command the militia. This fact is on record in the Provincial papers, and Jenness wrote that in 1690, during the King William War, the Massachusetts authorities appointed Roger Kelly “Captain of the Isles.” A company of militia under command of Captain Wiley was sent to the Shoals from Massachusetts, and this was the occasion of some trouble. The fishermen were opposed, it is said, to all manner of government rates and taxes unless the moneys received therefrom were expended on the Shoals. They, therefore, resented the billetting of the soldiers on them and even refused to pay for their subsistence, and Roger Kelly was the leader of the protestants.