1692.] COTTON MATHER'S VINDICATION. 471 that errors on both sides have attended them [the troubles] which will never be understood until the day when Satan shall Mather's be bound after another manner than he is at this day; but vindication. for my own part, I know not that ever I have advanced any opinion in the matter of witchcraft, but what all the ministers of the Lord that I know of in the world, whether English or Scotch, or French or Dutch, are of the same opinion with me.” CHAPTER XX. COLONIZATION BY FRIENDS. " PROGRESS OF NEW JERSEY. INSURRECTION UNDER JAMES CARTERET. - CHANGES IN THE NEW JERSEY TITLES. THE QUINTIPARTITE DEED." - DIVISION INTO EAST AND WEST JERSEY.. - PROSPERITY OF WEST JERSEY UNDER QUAKER RULE. CONFLICTS OF JURISDICTION. THE QUAKERS BUY EAST JERSEY. - Earliest CONNECTION OF WILLIAM PENN WITH AMERICAN COLONIZATION. — LIFE AND CHARACTER OF PENN. THE GRANT OF PENNSYLVANIA. EARLY SETTLERS. PENN IN AMERICA. -PHILADELPHIA FOUNDED. THE TREATY AT SHACKAMAXON. -PENN'S RETURN TO ENGLAND. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. PENN AGAIN AT PHILADELPHIA. THE new Proprietors of New Jersey had no reason to complain of Progress of any want of progress and prosperity in their colony for the New Jersey. first few years after it came into their possession. The constitution of government which they had established was acceptable to the people; the climate and the soil were attractive; the vicinity to older colonies made it easy to supply the wants of those who should settle in it, -exempt from the privations and hardships which necessarily attend a settlement in an isolated wilderness. Such representations brought emigrants from England; the enterprising and discontented in New England, whether desirous of more room, or restless for political or religious reasons, saw, or thought they saw, that they could better their condition by a removal to the new province. The first towns grew rapidly; others were begun. The axe and the plough, in the hands of sturdy farmers, everywhere encroached upon the primeval forests and the virgin soil. Trouble over rents and titles. But when, in 1670, the first quit-rents were demanded by the Proprietors, there came a check to all this prosperity. Titles to lands led to inevitable and bitter disputes. Some had purchased from the Indians; some claimed under the original Dutch owners; others had received grants from Nicolls; fewer still held deeds from the Proprietors at that time, Berkeley and Carteret. Bergen and Woodbridge were among the latter, and acknowledged their liability to the payment of these rents; but Elizabeth, Newark, and isolated farmers here and there, who had settled upon 1673.] CHANGES OF GOVERNORS AND TITLES. 473 their lands before the country had come under the jurisdiction of the English, united in resisting the demands of the proprietary govern ment. Resistance, at length, came to be absolute insurrection. A leader only was wanted, and it was not long before one was provided. About a year after the demand for the quit-rents was made, James Carteret, the second son of Sir George, arrived in the colony on his way to Carolina, of which he was one of the landgraves. A dissolute, unscrupulous, and ambitious man, he was ready to take advantage of any fortune that chance threw in his way. He put himself at the head of the movement against his cousin, Philip Carteret, who held his commission from James's father, Sir head of the George. In the spring of 1672 the insurrectionary party called an assembly at Elizabethtown, formally deposed Philip Carteret, and elected James to be Governor in his stead. Captain teret at the insurrection. Philip made little further attempt to contest the matter on the spot, but, appointing a deputy to represent him, took ship in the early summer and sailed for England, to lay the whole matter before his superiors. It was his wisest course. Unaided, he could do nothing against an unwilling people; and possibly he believed that his cousin's government would be to the malcontents a most salutary lesson. Such, at least, was the result. James showed himself to be utterly incompetent. By the time orders were received from the Duke of York, the insurgents were ready to submit. Captain Berry, Philip Carteret's deputy, was acknowledged without further trouble The Proprie in May, 1673;1 and James Carteret sailed for Virginia ten tary Governdays afterward.2 There was no further interruption of the stored. proprietary government until the Dutch reconquest of New Netherland in the autumn of that year; and even then, though New Jersey received the new name of Achter Col, and ostensibly passed once more under the Netherland rule, the real change was but slight, and internal tranquillity was almost undisturbed. ment re Title to New Jersey after the Treaty of New Jersey was placed in a new position when by the treaty of Westminster New Netherland was restored to England. The Duke of York's title to New York had been entirely extinguished by the conquest of the territory by a foreign Westminpower, and its subsequent passage to the crown by treaty; and he required a new grant from the King, in order to be again the rightful proprietor of the province. How much more, then, it 1 Whitehead, pp. 58, 59. ster. 2 He came back to New York afterward, where he was seen in 1679, "running about among the farmers, and staying where he can get most to drink, and sleeping in barns on the straw." Journal of the Labadists. was argued and it was an argument the Duke was willing enough to listen to was the title of his grantees, Berkeley and Carteret, in the province of New Jersey destroyed. James saw that he had an opportunity, under cover of this theory, to possess himself again of the territory he had parted with so rashly; and he availed himself of it without delay. He gave to Andros, after he had taken possession of the government of New England, a commission to govern all his property in America, New Jersey included, assuming that the grant to Berkeley and Carteret was void. Action of In the meantime, however, Sir George Carteret had hastened to do all in his power, not only to protect his own title, but to absorb that of his partner as well. He had gone to the King at once; and Charles, before he sealed his new grant to the Duke, had been induced to assure Carteret by letter that he was "seized of the Province of New Cæsarea, or New His title confirmed. Jersey," and that he had "the sole power, under us, to dispose of the said country, upon such terms and conditions as he should think fit." Berkeley, whose title had been equal with that of Carteret, had, in the spring of this year (1674)', conveyed his "undivided half" to John Fenwicke in trust for Edward Byllinge, but both his right to grant and his grantees were utterly ignored in this new royal document. Berkeley's grant to Fenwicke and Byllinge. A new grant. This step on the part of Carteret, interfering alike with the interest of all parties, led to a compromise. A short time after the issue of Andros's commission, a new grant was made (August 8, 1674), to Carteret, in severalty, of that part of New Jersey lying northeast of a line drawn from Barnegat Inlet to Ren1 Proud says (History New Jersey, i., 136), "in or about 1675;" but there is no doubt it was on March 18, 1674. 1676.] THE QUINTIPARTITE DEED." 475 kokus creek; but in conveying this the Duke did not give, as he had done before," the full power and authority to rule and govern,” nor did he vary the terms of Andros's appointment to be Governor over all the Duke's possessions in America. For a time all went well once more, and in the beginning of the next year Philip Carteret returned as Governor, made liberal concessions on the part of his cousin, and was quietly accepted by the people. But just as his government was thoroughly restored, the successors of Berkeley's grantees proposed another compromise, the consequences of which were momentous. linge. A quarrel had sprung up between Fenwicke and Byllinge with regard to their respective rights in their new purchase. It Fenwicke was against the tenets of their faith - both were members and Bylof the Society of Friends to go to law with one another, and they had decided to settle the matter by the arbitration of one of their own number. The dispute was referred to William Penn, already one of the most eminent members of their sect in England; and his decision, after some argument with Fenwicke, was made satisfactory to both. Fenwicke in person, with a few companions, set sail for America to found a colony; but Byllinge, overwhelmed by debts, was compelled to make an assignment for his creditors; and the greater part of his right and title in New Jersey was handed over to Penn, to Gawen Laurie and Nicholas Lucas - the latter being two of those to whom Byllinge was most deeply indebted. The matter had now become so complicated that all who were interested saw the necessity of an exact division of the province; for Berkeley had disposed of his share as an undivided half; while Sir George Carteret's pretensions, as the Duke of York's secretary wrote to Andros, had not yet been so adjusted that he could disregard the claims of others. Carteret evidently thought it better to negotiate directly with those whose rights were at least equal with his own, than to trust to the Duke's last grant, or even to the documents that had preceded it; while Penn, Laurie, and Lucas were anxious to make Byllinge's property of immediate avail, if possible, and perhaps also to carry out another plan of colonization, the outlines of which had just been considered among them. On the first of July, 1676, old style, therefore, after much preliminary negotia- The "Quintion, a "quintipartite deed" was completed, and signed by tipartite Carteret on the one side, and Penn, Laurie, Lucas, and Byllinge on the other, which divided the whole province of New Jersey into two great portions. "East New Jersey" included all that part northeast of a line drawn from Little Egg Harbor to a point on the most northern branch of the Delaware River, in north latitude 41° 40'. "West New Jersey" comprehended all the rest of Deed." East and West Jersey. |