 Chapter 6 of the Quaker Colonies by Sidney Fisher. This is a recording is in the public domain. The French and Indian War. There was no great change in political conditions in Pennsylvania until about the year 1755. The French and Canada had been gradually developing their plans of spreading down the Ohio and Mississippi valleys behind the English colonies. They were at the same time securing alliances with the Indians and inciting them to hostilities against the English. But so rapidly were the settlers advancing that often the land could not be purchased fast enough to prevent irritation and ill-feeling. The Scotch Irish and Germans, it has already been noted, settled on lands without the formality of purchase from the Indians. The government, when the Indians complained, sometimes ejected the settlers but more often hastened to purchase from the Indians the land which had been occupied. The importance of the British plantations in America, published in 1731, describes the Indians as peaceful and contented in Pennsylvania but irritated and unsettled in those other colonies where they had usually been ill-treated and defrauded. This, with other evidence, goes to show that up to that time Penn's policy of fairness and good treatment still prevailed, but those conditions soon changed as the famous walking purchase of 1737 clearly indicated. The walking purchase had provided for the sale of some lands along the Delaware below the Lee High on a line starting at Wrightstown a few miles back from the Delaware not far above Trenton and running northwest parallel with the river as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. The Indians understood that this tract would extend northward only to the Lee High, which was the ordinary journey of a day and a half. The proprietors, however, surveyed the line beforehand, marked the trees, engaged the fastest walkers and, with horses to carry provisions, started their men at sunrise. By running a large part of the way at the end of a day and a half, these men had reached a point thirty miles beyond the Lee High. The Delaware Indians regarded this measurement as a pure fraud and refused to abandon the many-sink region north of the Lee High. The proprietors then called in the assistance of the Six Nations of New York who ordered the Delaware's off the many-sink lands. Though they obeyed, the Delaware's became the relentless enemies of the white man and in the coming years, revenge themselves by massacres and murder. They also broke the control which the Six Nations had over them, became an independent nation, and in the French wars, revenge themselves on the Six Nations as well as on the white men. The Congress, which convened at Albany in 1754, was an attempt on the part of the British government to settle all Indian affairs in a general agreement and to prevent separate treaties by the different colonies. But the Pennsylvania delegates by various devices of compass, courses, which the Indians did not understand, and by failing to notify and secure the consent of certain tribes, obtained a grant of pretty much the whole of Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna. The Indians considered this procedure to be another gross fraud. It is to be noticed that in their dealings with Penn they had always been satisfied and that he had always been careful that they should be duly consulted and if necessary be paid twice over for the land. But his sons were more economical and as a result of the shrewd practices of the Albany purchase, the Pennsylvania Indians almost immediately went over in a body to the French and were soon scalping men, women and children among the Pennsylvania colonists. It is a striking fact, however, that in all the after years of war and rapine and four generations afterwards the Indians retained the most distinct and positive tradition of Penn's good faith and of the honesty of all Quakers. So persistent indeed was this tradition among the tribes of the west that more than a century later, President Grant proposed to put the whole charge of the nation's Indian affairs in the hands of the Quakers. The first efforts to avert the catastrophe threatened by the alliance of the red man with the French were made by the provincial assemblies which voted presence of money or goods to the Indians to offset similar presence from the French. The result was, of course, the utter demoralization of the savages bribed by both sides, the Indians used all their native cunning to encourage the bribers to bid against each other. So far as Pennsylvania was concerned, feeling themselves cheated in the first instance and now bribed with gifts, they developed a contempt for the people who could stoop to such practices. As a result, this contempt manifested itself indeed hitherto unknown in the province, one tribe on a visit to Philadelphia killed cattle and robbed orchards as they passed. The delegates of another tribe having visited Philadelphia and received five hundred pounds as a present returned to the frontier and on their way back for another present destroyed the property of the interpreter and Indian agent Conrad Weisser. They felt that they could do as they pleased to make matters worse. The assembly paid for all the damage done and having started on this foolish business, they found that the list of tribes demanding presence rapidly increased. The Shah Wanoas and the Six Nations as well as the Delaware's were now swarming to this new and convenient source of wealth. Whether the proprietors of the assembly should meet this increasing expense or divided between them became a subject of increasing controversy. It was in these discussions that Thomas Penn in trying to keep his family share of the expense as small as possible first got the reputation for closeness which followed him for the rest of his life and which started a party in the province. Desires of having parliament abolished the proprietorship and put the province under a governor appointed by the crown. The war with the French of Canada and their Indian allies is of interest here only in so far as it affected the government of Pennsylvania. From this point of view, it involved a series of contests between the proprietors and the crown on the one side and the assembly on the other. The proprietors and the crown took advantage of every military necessity to force the assembly into a surrender of popular rights. But the assembly resisted maintaining that they had the same right as the British commons of having their money bills received or rejected by the governor without amendment. Whatever they should give must be given on their own terms or not at all and they would not yield this point to any necessities of the war. When Governor Morris asked the assembly for a war contribution in 1754, they promptly voted 20,000 pounds. This was the same amount that Virginia the most active of the colonies in the war was giving. Other colonies gave much less. New York only 5,000 pounds and Maryland 6,000 pounds. Morris, however, would not have sent to the assembly's bill unless it contained a clause suspending its effect until the king's pleasure was known. This was an attempt to establish a precedent for giving up the assembly's charter right of passing laws which need not be submitted to the king for five years in which in the meantime were valid. The members of the assembly very naturally refused to be forced by the necessities of the war into surrendering one of the most important privileges the province possessed. It was they said as much their duty to resist this invasion of their rights as to resist the French. Governor Morris, besides demanding that the supply of 20,000 pounds should not go into force until the king's pleasure was known, insisted that the paper money representing it should be redeemable in five years. This period the assembly considered too short. The usual time was 10 years. Five years would ruin too many people by four closures. Moreover, the governor was attempting to dictate the way in which the people should raise a money supply. He and the king had a right to ask for aid in war but it was the right of the colony to use its own methods of furnishing this assistance. The governor also refused to let the assembly see the instructions from the proprietors under which he was acting. This was another attack upon their liberties and involved nothing less than an attempt to change their charter rights by secret instructions to a deputy governor which he must obey at his peril. Several bills had recently been introduced in the English parliament for the purpose of making royal instructions to governors binding on all the colonial assemblies without regard to their charters. This innovation the colonists felt would wreck all their liberties and turn colonial government into a mere despotism. The assemblies of all the colonies have been a good deal abused for delay in supporting the war and meanness and withholding money but in many instances the delay and lack of money were occasioned by the grasping schemes of governors who saw a chance to gain new privileges for the crown or appropriate or to weaken popular government by crippling the powers of the legislatures. The usual statement that the Pennsylvania assembly was slow in assisting the war because it was composed of Quakers is not supported by the facts. The Pennsylvania assembly was not behind the rest on this particular occasion when their large money supply bill could not be passed without sacrificing their constitutional rights. They raised money for the war by appointing a committee which was authorized to borrow 5,000 pounds on the credit of the assembly. Other contests arose over the claim of the proprietors that their estates in the province were exempt from taxation for the war or any purpose. One bill taxing the proprietary estates along with others was met by Thomas Penn offering to subscribe 5,000 pounds as a free gift to the colonies or measures. The assembly accepted this and passed the bill without taxing the proprietary estates. It turned out however to be a shrewd business move on the part of Thomas Penn for the 5,000 pounds was to be collected out of the quit rents that were in arrears and the payment of it was in consequence long delayed. The 50 Thomas had thus settled his bad debts on the province and gained a reputation for generosity at the same time. Pennsylvania though governed by Quakers assisted by non-combatant Germans had a better protected frontier than Maryland or Virginia. No colony indeed was at that time better protected. The Quaker assembly did more than take care of the frontier during the war. It preserved at the same time constitutional rights in defense of which 25 years afterwards the whole continent fought the revolution. The Quaker assembly even passed two militia bills one of which became law and sent rather more than the province's full share of troops to protect the frontiers of New York and New England and to carry the invasion into Canada. General Braddock warmly praised the assistance which Pennsylvania gave him because he said she had done more for him than any of the other colonies. Virginia and Maryland promised everything and performed nothing while Pennsylvania promised nothing and performed everything. Commodore Spie thanked the assembly for the large number of sailors sent his fleet at the expense of the province. General Shirley in charge of the New England and New York campaigns thanked the assembly for the numerous recruits and it was the common opinion at the time that Pennsylvania had sent more troops to the war than any other colony. In the first four years of the war the province spent for military purposes 210,567 pounds sterling which was a very considerable sum at that time for a community of less than 200,000 people. Quakers though they hate war will accept it when there is no escape. The old story of the Quaker who tossed a pirate overboard saying friend thee has no business here gives their point of view better than pages of explanation. Quaker opinion has not always been entirely uniform. In revolutionary times in Philadelphia there was a division of the Quakers known as the fighting Quakers and their meeting house is still pointed out at the corner of Fort Street and Arch. They even produced able military leaders Colonel John Dickinson, General Green and General Mifflin in the Continental Army and in the War of 1812 General Jacob Brown who reorganized the army and restored his failing fortunes after many officers had been tried and found wanting. There was always among the Quakers a rationalistic party and a party of mysticism. The rationalistic party prevailed in Pennsylvania all through the colonial period in the midst of the worst horrors of the French and Indian wars however the conscientious objectors roused themselves and began preaching and exhorting what has been called the mystical side of the faith. Many extreme Quaker members of the assembly resigned their seats in consequence after the revolution the spiritual party began gaining ground partly perhaps because then the responsibilities of government and care of the great political and religious experiment in Pennsylvania were removed. The spiritual party increased so rapidly in power that in 1827 a split occurred which involved not a little bitterness ill-feeling and litigation over property. This division into two opposing camps known as the Hicksites and the Orthodox continues and is likely to remain. Quaker government in Pennsylvania was put to still severe tests by the difficulties and disasters that followed Braddock's defeat. That unfortunate general had something over two thousand men and was hampered with a train of artillery and a splendid equipment of arms tools and supplies as if he were to march over the smooth highways of Europe. When he came to drag all these munitions through the depths of the Pennsylvania forests and up and down the mountains he found that he made only about three miles a day and that his horses had nothing to eat but the leaves of the trees. Washington who was of the party finally persuaded him to abandon his artillery and press forward with about 1500 picked men. These troops went a few miles from Fort Duquesne now Pittsburgh met about 600 Indians and 300 French coming from the fort. The English maintained a close formation where they were but the French and Indians immediately spread out on their flanks lying behind trees and logs which provided rests for their rifles and security for their bodies. This strategy decided the day the English were shot down like cattle in a pen and out of about 1500 only 450 escaped. The French and Indian loss was not much over 50. This defeat of Braddock's force has become one of the most famous reverses in history and it was made worse by the conduct of Dunbar who had been left in command of the artillery baggage and men in the rear. He could have remained where he was as some sort of protection to the frontier but he took fright burned his wagons emptied his barrels of powder into the streams destroyed his provisions and fled back to Fort Cumberland in Maryland. Here the governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia as well as the Pennsylvania Assembly urged him to stay but determined to make the British route complete. He soon retreated to the peace and quiet of Philadelphia and nothing would induce him to enter again the terrible forests of Pennsylvania. The natural result of the blunder soon followed the French finding the whole frontier of Pennsylvania Maryland and Virginia abandoned organized the Indians under French officers and swept the whole region with a devastation of massacre scalping and burning that has never been equaled. Hurons, Pottawatomies, Ojibwe's, Ottawa's, Mingo's, renegades from the six nations together with the old treaty friends of Penn the Delaware's and Chanoise began swarming eastward and soon had killed more people than had been lost at Braddock's defeat. The onslaught reached its height in September and October by that time all the outlying frontier settlers and their families have been killed or sent flying eastward to seek refuge in the settlements. The Indians even followed them to the settlements, reached the Susquehanna and crossed it. They massacred the people of the village of Ganad and Hutton near Bethlehem on the Lehigh and established nearby headquarters for prisoners and plunder. Families were scalped within 50 miles of Philadelphia and in one instance the bodies of our murdered family were brought into the town and exhibited in the streets to show the inhabitants how near the danger was approaching. Nothing could be done to stem the savage tide. Virginia was suffering in the same way the settlers on her border were slaughtered or were driven back in herds upon the more settled districts and Washington with the nominal strength of 1500 who would not obey orders was forced to stand to help the spectator of the general flight and misery. There was no adequate force or army anywhere within reach. The British had been put to flight and had gone to the defense of New England and New York, neither Pennsylvania nor Virginia had a militia that could withstand the French and their red allies. They could only wait till the panic had subsided and then see what could be done. One thing was accomplished however when the Pennsylvania Assembly passed a Quaker Militia Law which is one of the most curious legal documents of its kind in history. It was most aptly worded drafted by the master hand of Franklin. It recited the fact that the province had always been ruled by Quakers who were opposed to war but that now it had become necessary to allow men to become soldiers and to give them every facility for the profession of arms because the assembly though containing a Quaker majority nevertheless represented all the people of the province. To prevent those who believed in war from taking part in it would be as much a violation of liberty of conscience as to force enlistments among those who had conscientious group was against it nor would the Quaker majority have any right to compel others to bear arms and at the same time exempt themselves. Therefore a voluntary militia system was established under which a fighting Quaker of Presbyterian and Episcopalian or anybody could enlist and have all the military glory he could win. It was altogether a volunteer system two years afterwards as the necessities of war increased the Quaker Assembly passed a rather stringent compulsory militia bill but the governor vetoed it and the first law with its volunteer system remained in force. Franklin busied himself to encourage enlistments under it and was very successful. Though a philosopher and a man of science almost as much opposed to war as the Quakers and not even owning a shotgun he was elected commander and led a force of about 500 men to protect the Lehigh Valley. His common sense seems to have supplied his lack of military training. He did no worse than some professional soldiers who might be named. The valley was supposed to be in great danger since its village of Gennadon Hutton had been burned and its people massacred. The Moravians like the Quakers have suddenly found that they were not as much opposed to war as they had supposed. They had obtained arms and ammunition from New York and had built stockades and Franklin was glad to find them so well prepared when he arrived. He built small forts in different parts of the valley acted entirely on the defensive and no doubt checked the raids of the Indians at that point. They seemed to have been watching him from the hilltops all the time and any rashness on his part would probably have brought disaster upon him after his force had been withdrawn the Indians again attacked and burned Gennadon Hutton. The chain of forts at first 17 after his increase to 50 built by the assembly on the Pennsylvania frontier was a good plan so far as it went but it was merely defensive and by no means completely defensive since Indian raiding parties could pass between the forts. They served chiefly as refuges for neighboring settlers. The colonial troops were a militia after manning the 54th and sending their quota to the operations against Canada about way of New England and New York were not numerous enough to attack the Indians. They could only act on the defensive as Franklin's command had done as for the Rangers as the small bands of frontiersmen acting without any authority of either governor or legislature were called. They were very efficient as individuals but they accomplished very little because they acted at widely isolated spots. What was needed was a well organized force which could pursue the Indians on their own ground so far whispered that the settlers on the frontier would be safe the only troops which could do this were the British regulars with the assistance of the colonial militia. Two energetic efforts to end the war without aid from abroad were made however one by the Pacific Quakers and the other by the combatant portion of the people both of these were successful so far as they went but had little effect on the general situation. In the summer of 1756 the Quakers made a very earnest effort to persuade the two principal Pennsylvania tribes the Delaware's and the Char-Wanoes to withdraw from the French Alliance and return to their old friends. These two tribes possessed the knowledge of the country which enabled them greatly to assist the French designs on Pennsylvania. Chiefs of these tribes were brought under safe conducts to Philadelphia where they were entertained as equals in the Quaker homes. Such progress indeed was made that by the end of July a treaty of peace was concluded at Easton eliminating those two tribes from the war. This has sometimes been sneered at as mere Quaker pacifism but it was certainly successful in lessening the numbers and effectiveness of the enemy. The other undertaking was a military one the famous attack upon Katanning conducted by Colonel John Armstrong and Ulster Mann from Carlisle, Pennsylvania and the first really aggressive officer the province had produced. The Indians had two headquarters for their raids into the province one at Logstown on the Ohio a few miles below Fort Duquesne and the other at Katanning or as their French called it Attique about 40 miles northeast. At these two points they assembled their forces, received ammunition and supplies from the French and organized their expeditions. As Katanning was the nearer arms drawn in a masterly maneuver took 300 men through the mountains without being discovered and by falling upon the village earlier in the morning he affected a complete surprise the town was set on fire the Indians were put to flight and large quantities of their ammunition were destroyed but Armstrong could not follow up his success threatened by overwhelming numbers he hastened to withdraw the effect which the fighting and the Quaker treaty had on the frontier was good incursions of the savages were at least for the present check but the root of the evil had not yet been reached and the Indians remained masked along the Ohio ready to break in upon the people again at the first opportunity. The following year 1757 was the most depressing period of the war the proprietors of Pennsylvania took the opportunity to exempt their own estate from taxation and throw the burden of furnishing money for the war upon the colonists under pressure of the increasing success of the French and Indians and because the dreadful massacres were coming nearer and nearer to Philadelphia the Quaker assembly yielded voted the largest sum they had ever voted to the war and exempted the proprietary estates the colony was soon boiling with excitement the churchmen as friends of the proprietors were delighted to have the estates exempted thought it a good opportunity to have the Quaker assembly abolished and sent petitions and letters and proofs of alleged Quaker incompetence to the British government the Quakers and a large majority of the colonists on the other hand instead of consenting to their own destruction struck at the root of the churchmen's power by proposing to abolish the proprietors and in a letter to Isaac Norris Benjamin Franklin who had been sent to England to present the grievances of the colonists even suggested that two maltenance erections that might prove the proprietary government unable to preserve order or show the people to be ungovernable would do the business immediately turmoil and party strife rose to the most exciting heights and the details of it might under certain circumstances be interesting to describe but the next year 1758 the British government by sending a powerful force of regulars to Pennsylvania at last adopted the only method for ending the war confidence was it once restored the Pennsylvania assembly now voted the sufficient and indeed immense sum of 100,000 pounds and offered a bounty of five pounds to every recruit it was no longer a war of defense but now a war of aggression and conquest Fort Duquesne on the Ohio was taken and the next autumn Fort Pitt was built on its ruins then Canada fell and the French Empire in America came to an end Canada and the Great West passed into the possession of the Anglo-Saxon race end of chapter six chapter seven of the Quaker colonies by Sydney Fisher this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the decline of Quaker government when the Treaty of Peace was signed in 1763 extinguishing France's title to Canada and turning over Canada and the Mississippi Valley to the English the colonists were prepared to enjoy all the blessings of peace but the Treaty of Peace had been made with France not with the red man a remarkable genius Pontiac appeared among the Indians one of the few characters like Tecumseh and Osceola who are often cited as proof of latent powers almost equal to the strongest qualities of the white race within a few months he had united all the tribes of the west in a discipline and control which if it had been brought to the assistance of the French six years earlier might have conquered the colonies to the Atlantic seaboard before the British regulars could have come to their assistance the tribe swept westward into Pennsylvania burning murdering and leveling every habitation to the ground with the thoroughness beyond anything attempted under the French alliance the settlers and farmers fled eastward to the towns to live in cellars camps and sheds as best they could fortunately the colonies retained a large part of the military organization both men and officers of the French war and were soon able to handle the situation Detroit and Niagara were relieved by water and an expedition commanded by Colonel Bouquet who had distinguished himself under General Fortiers saved Fort Pitt at this time the Scotch Irish frontiersmen suddenly became prominent they had been organizing for their own protection and were meeting with not a little success they refused to join the expedition of regular troops marching westward against Pontiac's warriors because they wanted to protect their own homes and because they believed the regulars to be marching to shore destruction many of the regular troops were invalidated from the West Indies and the Scotch Irish never expected to see any of them again they believed that the salvation of Pennsylvania or at least of their part of the province depended entirely upon themselves their increasing numbers and rugged independence were forming them also into an organized political party with decided tendencies as it afterwards appeared towards forming a separate state the extreme narrowness of the Scotch Irish however misled them the only real safety for the province lay in regularly constituted and strong expeditions like that of Bouquet which would drive the main body of the savages far westward but the Scotch Irish could not see this and with that intensity of passion which marked all their actions they turned their energy and vengeance upon the Quakers and semi-civilized Indians in the eastern end of the colony their preachers who were their principal leaders and organizers encouraged them in denouncing Quaker doctrine as a wicked heresy from which only evil could result the Quakers had offended God from the beginning by making treaties of kindness with the heathen savages instead of exterminating them as the scripture commanded and when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee thou shall smite them and utterly destroy them thou shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy unto them the scripture had not been obeyed the heathen had not been destroyed on the contrary a systematic policy of covenants treaties and kindness have been persisted in for two generations and as a consequence the Ulster men said their frontiers were now deluged in blood they were particularly resentful against the small settlement of Indians near Bethlehem who had been converted to Christianity by the Moravians and another little village of half-civilized basket making Indians at Conestoga near Lancaster the Scotch Irish had worked themselves up into a strange belief that these small remnants were sending information arms and ammunition to the western tribes and they seemed to think that it was more important to exterminate these little communities than to go with such expeditions as bouquets to the west they asked the governor to remove these civilized Indians and assured him that their removal would secure the safety of the frontier when the governor not being able to find anything against the Indians declined to remove them the Scotch Irish determined to attend to the matter in their own fashion bouquet's victory at Bush Iran much to the surprise of the Scotch Irish stopped Indian raids of any seriousness until the following spring but in the autumn there were a few depredations which led the frontiersmen to believe that the whole invasion would begin again a party of them therefore started to attack the Moravian Indians near Bethlehem but before they could accomplish their object the governor brought most of the Indians down to Philadelphia for protection even there they were narrowly saved from the mob for the hostility against them was spreading throughout the province soon afterwards another party of Scotch Irish ever since known as the Paxton Boys went at break of day to the village of the Conestoga Indians and found only six of them at home three men two women and a boy these they instantly shot down mutilated their bodies and burned their cabins as the murderers returned they related to a man on the road what they had done and when he protested against the cruelty of the deed they asked don't you believe in God in the Bible the remaining 14 inhabitants of the village who were away selling brooms were collected by the sheriff and put in the jail at Lancaster for protection the Paxton's heard of it and in a few days stormed the jail broke down the doors and either shot the poor Indians or cut them to pieces with hatchets this was probably the first instance of lynched law in America it raised a storm of indignation and controversy and a pamphlet war persisted for several years the whole province was immediately divided into two parties on one side were the Quakers most of the Germans and conservatives of every sort and on the other inclined to sympathize with the scotch irish were the eastern Presbyterians some of the churchmen and various miscellaneous people whose vindictiveness towards all Indians had been aroused by the war the Quakers and conservatives who seem to have been the more numerous a sale of the scotch irish in no measured language as a gang of ruffians with that respect for law or order who though always crying for protection had refused to march with bouquet to save for pit or to furnish him the slightest assistance instead of going westward where the danger was and something might be accomplished they had turned eastward among the settlements and murdered a few poor defense's people mostly women and children Franklin who had now returned from England wrote one of his best pamphlets against the Paxton's the valorous heroic Paxton's as he called them prading of God in the bible 57 of whom armed with rifles knives and hatchets had actually succeeded in killing three old men two women and a boy this pamphlet became known as the narrative from the first word of its title and it had an immense circulation like everything Franklin wrote it is interesting reading to this day one of the first effects of this controversy was to drive the excitable scotch irish into a flame of insurrection not unlike the whiskey rebellion which started among them some years after the revolution they held tumultuous meetings denouncing the Quakers and the whole proprietary government in Philadelphia and they organized an expedition which included some delegates to suggest reforms for the most part however it was a well-equipped little army variously estimated at from 500 to 1500 on foot and on horseback which marched towards Philadelphia with no uncertain purpose they openly declared that they intended to capture the town seize the Moravian Indians protected there and put them to death they fully expected to be supported by most of the people and to have everything their own way as they passed along the roads they amuse themselves in their rough fashion by shooting chickens and pigs frightening people by thrusting their rifles into windows and occasionally throwing someone down and pretending to scalp him in the city there was great excitement and alarm even the classes who sympathized with the scotch irish did not altogether relish having their property burned or destroyed great preparations were made to meet the expedition British regulars were summoned eight companies of militia and a battery of artillery were hastily formed Franklin became a military man once more and super intended the preparations on all sides the Quakers were enlisting they had become accustomed to war and this legitimate chance to shoot a scotch Irish Presbyterian was too much for the strongest scruples of their religion it was a long time however before they heard the end of this zeal and in the pamphlet war which followed they were accused of clamorously rushing to arms and demanding to be led against the enemy it is amusing now to read about it in the old records but it was serious enough at the time when the scotch Irish army reached the Scoot Gill River and found the fours leading to the city guarded they were not quite so enthusiastic about killing Quakers and Indians they went up the river some 15 miles crossed by an unopposed fort and halted in Germantown 10 miles north of Philadelphia that was as far as they thought it's safe to venture several days passed during which the city people continued their preparations and expected every night to be attacked there were indeed several false alarms whenever the alarm was sounded at night everyone placed candles in his windows to light up the streets one night when it rained the soldiers were allowed to shelter themselves in a Quaker meeting house which for some hours bristled with bayonets and swords an incident of which the Presbyterian pamphleteers afterwards made much use for satire on another day all the cannon were fired to let the enemy know what was in store for him finally commissioners with the clever genial Franklin at their head went out to Germantown to negotiate and soon had the whole mighty difference composed the Scotch Irish stated their grievances the Moravian Indians ought not to be protected by the government and all such Indians should be removed from the colony the men who killed the Conestoga Indians should be tried where the supposed defense was committed and not in Philadelphia the five frontier counties had only 10 representatives in the assembly while the three others had 26 this should be remedied men wounded in border war should be cared for at public expense no trade should be carried on with hostile Indians until they restored prisoners and there should be a bounty on scalps while these negotiations were proceeding some of the Scotch Irish amused themselves by practicing with their rifles at the weather vane a figure of a cock on the steeple of the old Lutheran church in Germantown an unimportant incident it is true but one repeating the conditions and character of the time as much as graver matters do the old weather vane with the bullet marks upon it is still preserved about 30 of the same riflemen were invited to Philadelphia and were allowed to wander about and see the sights of the town the rest returned to the frontier as for their list of grievances not one of them was granted except strange and sad to relate the one which asked for a scalp bounty the governor after the manner of other colonies that must be admitted issued the long-desired scalp proclamation which after offering rewards for prisoners and scalps closed by a saying and for the scalp of a female Indian 50 pieces of eight William Penn's Indian policy had been admired for its justice and humanity by all the philosophers and statesmen of the world and now his grandson governor of the province in the last days of the family's control was offering bounties for women's scalps Franklin while in England had succeeded in having the proprietary lands taxed equally with the lands of the colonists but the proprietors attempted to construe this provision so that their best lands were taxed at the rate paid by the people on their worst this obvious quibble of course raised such a storm of opposition that the Quakers joined by classes which had never before supported them and now forming a large majority determined to appeal to the government in England to abolish the proprietorship and put the colony under the rule of the king in the proposal to make Pennsylvania a crown colony there was no intention of confiscating the possessions of the proprietors it was merely the proprietary political power their right to appoint the governor that was to be abolished this right was to be absorbed by the crown with payment for its value to the proprietors but in all other respects the charter and the rights and liberties of the people were to remain unimpaired just there lay the danger an act of parliament would be required to make the change and having once started on such a change parliament or the party in power therein might decide to make other changes and in the end there might remain very little of the original rights and liberties of the colonists under their charter it was by no means a wise move but intense feeling on the subject was aroused passionate feelings seem to have been running very high among the steady Quakers in this new outburst the Quakers had the Scotch Irish on their side and a part of the churchmen the Germans were divided but the majority enthusiastic for the change was very large there was a new alignment of parties the eastern Presbyterians usually more or less in sympathy with the Scotch Irish broke away from them on this occasion these Presbyterians opposed the change to a royal governor because they believed that it would be followed by the establishment by law of the church of England with bishops and all the other ancient evils although some of the churchmen joined the Quakers side most of them and the most influential of them were opposed to the change and did good work in opposing it they were well content with their position under the proprietors and saw nothing to be gained under a royal governor there were also not a few people who in the increase of the wealth of the province had acquired aristocratic tastes and were attached to the pleasant social conditions that had grown up around the proprietary governors and their followers and there were also those whose salaries incomes or opportunities for wealth were more or less dependent on the proprietors retaining the executive offices and the appointments and patronage one of the most striking instances of a change of size was the case of a Philadelphia Quaker John Dickinson a lawyer of large practice a man of wealth and position and have not a little colonial magnificence when he drove in his coach and for it was he who later wrote the famous farmers letters during the revolution he was a member of the assembly and had been in politics for some years but on this question of a change to royal government he left the Quaker majority and opposed the change with all his influence and ability he and his father-in-law Isaac Norris speaker of the assembly became the leaders against the change and Franklin and Joseph Galloway the latter afterwards a prominent loyalist in the revolution were the leading advocates of the change the whole subject was thoroughly thrashed out in debates in the assembly and in pamphlets of very great ability and of much interest to students of colonial history and the growth of American ideas of liberty it must be remembered that this was the year 1764 on the eve of the revolution British statesmen were planning a system of more rigorous control of the colonies and the advisability of a stamp tax was under consideration information of all these possible changes had reached the colonies Dickinson foresaw the end and warned the people Franklin and the Quaker party thought there was no danger and that the mother country could be implicitly trusted Dickinson warned the people that the British ministry were starting special regulations for new colonies and designing the strictest reformations in the old it would be a great relief he admitted to be rid of the pettiness of the proprietors and it might be accomplished sometime in the future but not now the proprietary system might be bad but a royal government might be worse it might wreck all the liberties of the province religious freedom the assembly's control of its own adjournments and its power of raising and disposing of the public money the ministry of the day in England were well known not to be favorably inclined towards Pennsylvania because of the frequently reported willfulness of the assembly on which the recent disturbances had also been blamed if the king ministry and parliament started upon a change they might decide to reconstitute the assembly entirely abolish its ancient privileges and disfranchise both Quakers and Presbyterians the arguments of Franklin and Galloway consisted principally of assertions of the good intentions of the mother country and the absurdity of any fear on the part of the colonists for their privileges but the king in whom they had so much confidence was George III and the parliament which they thought would do no harm was the same one which a few months afterwards passed the stamp act which brought on the revolution Franklin and Galloway also asserted that the colonies like Massachusetts the jerseys and the carolinas which have been changed to royal governments had profited by the change but that was hardly the prevailing opinion in those colonies themselves royal governors could be as petty and annoying as the pens and far more tyrannical Pennsylvania had always defeated any attempts at despotism on the part of the pen family and had built up a splendid body of liberal laws and legislative privileges but governors with the authority and power of the British crown behind them could not be so easily resisted as the deputy governors of the pens the assembly however voted 2073 with Franklin and Galloway in the general election of the autumn the question was debated anew among the people and though Franklin and Galloway were defeated for seats in the assembly yet the popular verdict was strongly in favor of a change and the majority in the assembly was for practical purposes unaltered they voted to appeal to England for the change and appointed Franklin to be their agent before the crown and ministry he sailed again for England and soon was involved in the opening scenes of the revolution he was made agent for all the colonies and he spent many delightful years there pursuing his studies in science dining with distinguished men staying at country seats and learning all the arts of diplomacy for which he afterwards became so distinguished as for the assembly's petition for a change to royal government Franklin presented it but never pressed it he too was finally convinced that the time was in opportune in fact the assembly itself before long began to have doubts and fears and sent him word to let the subject drop and amid much greater events it was soon entirely forgotten end of chapter seven chapter eight of the quaker colonies by Sydney Fisher this liberal box recording is in the public domain the beginnings of new jersey new jersey skill yet to be as the indians called it or Noah C. Zaria as it was called in the Latin of its proprietary grant had a history rather different from that of other English colonies in America geographically it had not a few attractions it was a good-sized dominion surrounded on all sides but one by water almost an island domain secluded and independent in fact it was the only one of the colonies which stood naturally separate and apart the others were bounded almost entirely by artificial or imaginary lines it offered an opportunity one might have supposed for some dissatisfied religious sect of the 17th century to secure a sanctuary and keep off all intruders but at first no one of the various denominations seems to have fancied it or chanced upon it the Puritans disembarked upon the bleak shores of New England well suited to the sternness of their religion how different American history might have been if they had established themselves in the jerseys could they under those milder skies have developed witchcraft set up blue laws and indulged in the killing of quakers after a time they learned about the jerseys and cast thrifty eyes upon them their seafaring habits and the pursuit of whales led them along the coast and into Delaware Bay the Puritans of New Haven made persistent efforts to settle the southern part of Jersey on the Delaware near Salem they thought as their quaint old records show that if they could once start a branch colony in jersey it might become more populous and powerful than the New Haven settlement and in that case they intended to move their seat of government to the new colony but their shrewd estimate of its value came too late the Dutch and the Swedes occupied the Delaware at that time and drove them out Puritans however entered northern Jersey and while they were not numerous enough to make it a thoroughly Puritan community they largely tinged its thought in its laws and their influence still survives the difficulty with Jersey was that its seacoast was a monotonous line of breakers with dangerous shoal inlets few harbors and vast mosquito infested salt marshes and sandy thickets in the interior it was for the most part a level heavily forested sandy swampy country in its southern portions and rough and mountainous in the northern portions even the entrance by Delaware Bay was so difficult by reason of its shoals that it was the last part of the coast to be explored the Delaware region and jersey were in fact a sort of middle ground far less easy of access by the sea than the regions to the north in New England and to the south in Virginia there were only two places easy of settlement in the jerseys one was the open region of meadows and marshes by Newark Bay near the mouth of the Hudson and along the Hackensack River whence the people slowly extended themselves to the seashore at sandy hook and then southward along the ocean beach this was east jersey the other easily occupied region which became west jersey stretched along the shore of the lower Delaware from the modern Trenton to Salem whence the settlers gradually worked their way into the interior between these two divisions lay a rough wilderness which in its southern portion was full of swamps thickets and pine barons so rugged was the country that the native Indians live for the most part only in the two open regions already described the natural geographical geological and even social division of New Jersey is made by drawing a line from Trenton to the mouth of the Hudson River north of that line the successive terraces of the Piedmont and mountainous region form part of the original North American continent south of that line the more or less sandy level region was once a shoal beneath the ocean afterwards a series of islands in one island with a wide sound behind it passing along the division line to the mouth of the Hudson southern Jersey was in short an island with a sound behind it very much like the present long island the shoal an island had been formed in the far distant geologic past by the erosion and washings from the lofty pennsylvania mountains now worn down to mere stumps the Delaware River flowed into this sound at Trenton gradually the Hudson end of the sound filled up as far as Trenton but the tide from the ocean still runs up the remains of the old sound as far as Trenton the Delaware should still be properly considered as ending at Trenton for the rest of its course to the ocean is still a part of old pen-sockin sound as it is called by geologists the jerseys originated as a colony in 1664 in 1675 west jersey passed into the control of the quakers in 1680 east jersey came partially under quaker influence in august 1664 Charles II sees new york new jersey and all the dutch possessions in america having previously in march granted them to his brother the duke of york the duke almost immediately gave to lord barkley and sir george carteret members of the privy council and defenders of the steward family in the cromwellian wars the land between the Delaware river and the ocean and bounded on the north by a line drawn from latitude 41 degrees on the Hudson to latitude 41 degrees 40 minutes on the Delaware this region was to be called the grant said Noah see Zaria or new jersey the name was a compliment to carteret who in the cromwellian wars had defended the little aisle of jersey against the forces of the long parliament as the american jersey was then almost an island and geologically had been one the name was not inappropriate barkley and carteret divided the province between them in 1676 an exact division was attempted creating the rather unnatural sections known as east jersey and west jersey the first ideas seems to have been to divide by a line running from barnagat on the sea shore to the mouth of pen salken creek on the Delaware just above camden this however would have made a north jersey and a south jersey with the latter much smaller than the former several lines seem to have been surveyed at different times in the attempt to make an exactly equal division which was no easy engineering task as private land titles and boundaries were in some places dependent on the location of the division line there resulted much controversy and litigation which lasted down into our own time without going into details it is sufficient to say that the acceptable division line began on the sea shore at little ag harbor at the lower end of barnagat bay and cross diagonally or north westerly to the northern part of the Delaware river just above the water gap it is known as the old province line and it can be traced on any map of the state by prolonging in both directions the northeastern boundary of burlington county west jersey which became decidedly quaker did not remain long in the possession of lord barkley he was growing old and disappointed in his hopes of seeing it settled he sold it in 1673 for one thousand pounds to john fenwick and edward billing both of them old cromwellian soldiers turned quakers that this purchase was made for the purpose of affording a refuge in america for quakers then much imprisoned and persecuted in england does not very distinctly appear at least there was no parade of it but such a purpose in addition to profit for the proprietors may well have been in the minds of the purchasers george fox the quaker leader had just returned from a missionary journey in america in the course of which he had traveled through new jersey and going from new york to maryland some years previously in england about 1659 he had made inquiries as to a suitable place for quaker settlement and was told of the region north of maryland which became pennsylvania but how could a persecuted sect obtain such a region from the british crown and the government that was persecuting them it would require a powerful influence at court nothing could then be done about it and pennsylvania had to wait until we impend became a man with influence enough in 1681 to win it from the crown but here was west jersey no longer owned directly by the crown and bought in cheap by two quakers it was an unexpected opportunity quakers soon went to it and it was the first quaker colonial experiment billing and fenwick though turn quakers seem to have retained some of the contentious cromwellian spirit of their youth they soon quarreled over their respective interests in the ownership of west jersey and to prevent a lawsuit so objectionable to quakers the decision was left to william penn then a rising young quaker about 30 years old dreaming of ideal colonies in america penn awarded fenwick a one-tenth interest in 400 pounds billing soon became insolvent and turned over his nine-tenths interest to his creditors appointing penn and two other quakers garwin lorry a merchant of london and nicolas lucas a molster of hartford to hold it in trust for them garwin lorry afterwards became deputy governor of east jersey lucas was one of those thoroughgoing quakers just released from eight years in prison for his religion fenwick also in the end fell into debt and after selling over 100 000 acres to about 50 purchasers leased what remained of his interest for a thousand years to john edridge a tanner and edmund warner apult were as security for money barred from them they conveyed this lease and their claims to penn lorry and lucas who thus became the owners as trustees of pretty much all west jersey this was william penn's first practical experience in american affairs he and his fellow trustees with the consent of fenwick divided the west jersey ownership into 100 shares the nine t belonging to billing were offered for sale to settlers or to creditors of billing who would take them in exchange for debts the settlement of west jersey thus became the distribution of an insolvent quakers estate among his creditor fellow religionists although no longer in possession of a title to land fenwick in 1675 went out with some quaker settlers to delaware bay there they founded the modern town of salem which means peace giving it that name because of the fair and peaceful aspect of the wilderness on the day they arrived they bought the land from the indians in the usual manner as the swedes and dutch had so often done but they have no charter or provision for organized government when fenwick attempted to exercise political authority at salem he was seized and imprisoned by andro's governor of new york for the duke of york on the ground that although the duke had given jersey to certain individual proprietors the political control of it remained in the duke's deputy governor andro's who had levied attacks of five percent and all goods passing up the delaware now established commissioners at salem to collect the duties this action brought up the whole question of the authority of andro's the trustee proprietors of west jersey appealed to the dirt of york who was suspiciously indifferent to the matter but finally referred it for decision to a prominent lawyer sir william jones before whom the quake group of proprietors of west jersey made a most excellent argument they showed the illegality injustice and wrong of depriving the jerseys of vested political rights enforcing them from the freeman's right of making their own laws to a state of mere dependence on the arbitrary will of one man then with much boldness they declared that to exact such an unterminated tax from english planters and to continue it after so many repeated complaints would be the greatest evidence of a design to introduce if the crown should ever devolve upon the duke and unlimited government in old england prophetic words which the duke in a few years tried his best to fulfill but sir william jones deciding against him he acquiesced confirmed the political rights of west jersey by a separate grant and withdrew in the authority andro's claimed over east jersey the trouble however did not end here both the jerseys were long afflicted by domineering attempts from new york penn and his fellow trustees now prepared a constitution or concessions and agreements as they called it for west jersey the first quaker political constitution embodying their advanced ideas establishing religious liberty universal suffrage and voting by ballot and abolishing imprisonment for debt it foreshadowed some of the ideas subsequently included in the pennsylvania constitution all these experiences were an excellent school for we in penn he learned the importance in starting a colony of having a carefully and maturely considered system of government in his preparation some years afterwards for establishing pennsylvania he avoided much of the bungling of the west jersey enterprise a better organized attempt was now made to establish a foothold in west jersey farther up the river than then wicks colony at salem in 1677 the ship kent took out some 230 rather well-to-do quakers about his final company of broad brems it is said has ever entered the Delaware some were from yorkshire and london largely creditors of billing who were taking land to satisfy their debts they all went up the river to raccoon creek on the jersey side about 15 miles below the present site of philadelphia and lived at first among the swedes who had been in that part of jersey for some years and who took care of the new arrivals in their barns and sheds these quaker immigrants however soon began to take care of themselves and the weather during the winter proving mild they explored farther up the river in a small boat they bought from the indians the land along the river shore from old men's creek all the way up to Trenton and made their first settlements on the river about 18 miles above the site of philadelphia at a place they at first called new Beverly then bridlington and finally burlington they may have chosen this spot partly because there had been an old dutch settlement of a few families there it had long been a crossing of the Delaware for the few persons who passed by land from new york or new england to mariland and virginia one of the dutchmen peter yegan kept a ferry and a house for entertaining travelers george fox who crossed there in 1671 describes the place as having been plundered by the indians and deserted he and his party swam their horses across the river and got some of the indians to help them with canoes other quaker immigrants followed going to Salem as well as to Burlington and a stretch of some 50 miles of the river shore became strongly quaker there are not many american towns now to be found with more of the old time picturesqueness and more relics of the past than Salem and Burlington settlements were also started on the river opposite the site afterwards occupied by philadelphia at newton on the creek still called by that name and another a little above on cooper's creek known as cooper's ferry until 1794 since then it has become the flourishing town of camden full of shipbuilding and manufacturing but for long after the revolution it was merely a small village on the jersey shore opposite philadelphia sometimes used as a hunting ground and a place of resort for duelers and dancing parties from philadelphia the newton settlers were quakers of the english middle class weavers tanners carpenters bricklayers janlers blacksmiths coopers bakers haberdasher's hatters and then andrape was most of them possessed of property in england and bringing good supplies with them like all the rest of the new jersey settlers they were in no sense adventurers gold seekers cavalers or desperados they were well to do middle class english tradespeople who would never have thought of leaving england if they had not lost faith in the stability of civil and religious liberty and the security of their property under the steward kings with them came servants as they were called that is persons of no property who agreed to work for a certain time and payment of their passage to escape from england all indeed were escaping from england before their estates melted away in fines and confiscations or their health or lives ended in the damp foul air of the crowded prisons many of those who came had been in jail and had decided that they would not risk imprisonment a second time indeed the proportion of west jersey immigrants who had actually been in prison for holding or attending quaker meetings or refusing to pay ties for the support of the established church was large for example william bates a carpenter while in jail for his religion made arrangements with his friends to escape to west jersey as soon as he should be released and his descendants are now scattered over the united states robert turner a man of means who settled finally in philadelphia but also owned much land near newton in west jersey had been imprisoned in england in 1660 again in 1662 again in 1665 and some of his property had been taken again imprisoned in 1669 and more property taken and many others had the same experience details such as these make us realize the situation from which the quakers sought to escape so widespread was the quaker movement in england and so severe the punishment imposed in order to suppress it that 15 000 families are said to have been ruined by the fines confiscations and imprisonments not a few jersey quakers were from ourland with it they had fled because there the laws against them were less rigorously administered the newton settlers were joined by quakers from long island were under the english law as administered by the new york governors they had also been fined and imprisoned though with less severity than at home for non-conformity to the church of england on arriving the west jersey settlers suffered some hardships during the year that must elapse before a crop could be raised in a log cabin or house built during that period they usually lived in the indian manner in wigwams of poles covered with bark or in caves protected with logs in the steep banks of the creeks many of them lived in the villages of the indians the indians supplied them all with corn and venison and without this indian help they would have run serious risk of starving for they were not accustomed to hunting they had also to thank the indians for having in past ages removed so much of the heavy forest growth from the wide strip of land along the river that it was easy to start cultivation these quaker settlers made a point of dealing very justly with the indians and the two races lived side by side for several generations there is an instance recorded of the indians attending with much solemnity the funeral of a prominent quaker woman ester spicer for whom they had acquired great respect the funeral was held at night and the indians in canoes the white men and boats passed down coopers creek and along the river to newton creek where the graveyard was lighting the darkness with innumerable torches a strange scene to think of now as having been once enacted in front of the bustling cities of camden and philadelphia some of the young settlers took indian wives and that strain of native blood is said to show itself in the features of several families to this day many letters of these settlers have been preserved all expressing the greatest enthusiasm for the new country for the splendid river better than the tins the good climate and their improved health the immense relief to be away from the constant dread of fines and punishment the chance to rise in the world with large rewards for industry they note the immense quantities again the indians bringing in fat bucks every day the venison better than in england the streams full of fish the abundance of wild fruits cranberries fertile berries the rapid increase of cattle and the good soil a few details concerning some of the interesting characters among these early colonial quakers have been rescued from oblivion there is for instance the pleasing picture of a young man and his sister convinced quakers coming out together and pioneering in their log cabin until each found a partner for life there was john hadn't from whom hadn't field his name to bought a large tract of land but remained in england while his daughter elizabeth came out alone to look after it a strong decisive character she was and women of that sort have always been encouraged in independent action by the quakers she proved to be an excellent manager of an estate the romance of her marriage to a young quaker preacher as style has been celebrated and Mrs maria child's novel the youthful immigrant the pair became leading citizens devoted to good works and to quaker liberalism for many a year in hadn't field it was the ship shields of hall bringing quaker immigrants to burlington of which the story is told that in beating up the river she tacked close to the rather high bank with deep water frontage where philadelphia was afterwards established and some of the passengers remarked that it was a fine sight for a town those shields it is said was the first ship to sail up as far as burlington anchoring before burlington in the evening the colonists woke up next morning to find the river frozen hard so that they walked on the ice to their future habitations burlington was made the capital of west jersey the legislature was convened and laws were passed under the concessions or constitution of the proprietors salem and burlington became the ports of the little province which was well underway by 1682 when pan came out to take possession of pennsylvania the west jersey people of these two settlements spread eastward into the interior but were stopped by great forest area known as the pines or pine barons of such heavy growth that even the indians lived on its outer edges and entered it only for hunting it was an irregularly shaped track full of wolves bear beaver deer and other gain and until recent years has continued to attract sportsmen from all parts of the country starting your delaware bay it extended parallel with the ocean as far north as the lower portion of the present monmouth county and formed a region about 75 miles long and 30 miles wide it was roughly the part of the old sandy shoal that first emerged from the ocean and it has been longer above water than in the other part of southern jersey the old name pine barons is hardly correct because it implies something like a desert when as a matter of fact the region produced magnificent forest trees the innumerable visitors who crossed southern jersey to the famous sea shore resorts always passed through the remains of this old central forest and are likely to conclude that the monotonous low scrub oaks and stunted pines on sandy level soil seen for the last two or three generations were always there and that the primeval forest of colonial times was no better but that is a mistake the stunted growth now seen is not even second growth but in many cases fourth or fifth or more the whole region was cut over long ago the original growth pine in many places consisted also of lofty timber of oak here greek gum ash chestnut and numerous other trees interspersed with dogwood sassafras and holly and in the swamps the beautiful magnolia along with the valuable white cedar derise who visited the jersey coast about 1632 at what is supposed to have been beeslees or summers point describes high woods coming down to the shore even today immediately back of summers point there is a magnificent lofty oak forest accidentally preserved by a surrounding marsh from the destructive forest fires and there are similar groves along the road towards pleasantville in fact the finest forest trees first in that region were ever given a good chance even some of the beaches of cape may had valuable oak and luxuriant groves of red cedar and until a few years ago there were fine trees especially holly surviving on wildwood beach the jersey white cedar swamps were and still are places of fascinating interest to the naturalist and the bottomist the hunter or explorer found them scattered almost everywhere in the old forest and near its edges varying in size from a few square yards up to hundreds of acres they were formed by little streams easily checked in their flow through the lava land by decaying vegetation or dam by beavers they kept the water within the country preventing all effects of drought stimulating the growth of vegetation which by its decay throughout the centuries was steadily adding vegetable mold or humus to the sandy soil this process of building up a richer soil has now been largely stopped by lumbering drainage and fires while there are many of these swamps left the appearance of numbers of them has largely changed when the white man first came the great cedars three or four feet in diameter which had fallen centuries before often lay among the living trees some of them very deep in the mud and preserved from decay they were invaluable timber and digging them out and cutting them up became an important industry for over a hundred years in addition to being used for boat building they made excellent shingles which would last a lifetime the swamps indeed became known as shingle mines and it was a good description of them an important trade was developed in hogs head staves hoops shingles boards and planks much of which went into the west indian trade to be exchanged for rum sugar molasses and negroes the great forest has long since been lumbered to death the pines were worked for tar pitch resin and turpentine until for lack of material the industry passed southward through the carolinas to florida exhausting the trees as it went the christmas demand for holly has almost stripped the jersey woods of these trees once or numerous destructive fires and frequent cutting keep the pine and oakland stunted thousands of dollars worth of cedar springing up in the swamps or sometimes destroyed in a day but efforts to control the fires so destructive not only to this standing timber but to the fertility of the sore and attempts to reforest this country not only for the sake of timber but as an attraction to those who resort there in search of health or natural beauty have not been vigorously pushed the great forest has now to be sure been partially cultivated in spots and the sand used for large glass making industries small fruits and grapes flourish in some places at the northern end of this forest track the health resort known as lakewood was established to take advantage of the pine air a little to the south as the secluded browns mills once so appealing to lovers of the simple life checked on the east by the great forest the west jersey quaker spread southward from salem until they came to the kahanzi a large and beautiful stream flowing out of the forest and wandering through green meadows and marshes to the bay so numus were the wild geese along its shores and along the morris river farther south that the first settlers are said to have killed them for their feathers alone and to have thrown the carcasses away at the head of navigation of the kohanzi was a village called kohanzi bridge and after 1765 Bridgeton a name still borne by a flourishing modern town lower down near the marsh was the village of Greenwich the principal place of business up to the year 1800 with a foreign trade some of the tea the east india company tried to force on the colonists during the revolution was sent there and was duly rejected it is still an extremely pretty village with its broad shaded streets like New England town in its old quaker meeting house in fact not a few new englanders from Connecticut still infatuated with southern jersey in spite of the rebuffs received in ancient times from dutch and swedes finally settled near the kahanzi after it came under control of the more amiable quakers there was also one place called after fairfield in Connecticut and another called New England town the first churches of this region were usually built near running streams so that the congregation could procure water for themselves and their horses of one old presbyterian church it used to be said that no one had ever written to it in a wheeled vehicle wagons and carriages were very scarce until after the revolution carts for occasions of ceremony as well as utility were used before wagons and carriages for 150 years the horses back was the best form of conveyance in the deep sand of the trails and roads this was drew of all southern jersey pack horses and the backs of indian and negro slaves were the principal means of transportation on land the rows and trails in fact were so few and so heavy with sand that water travel was very much developed the indian dugout canoe was adopted and found faster and better than heavy english rowboats as the province was almost surrounded by water and was covered with a network of creeks and channels nearly all the villages and towns were situated on tide water streams and the dugout canoe modified and improved was for several generations the principal means of communication most of the old roads in new jersey followed indian trails there was a trail for example from the modern camden opposite philadelphia following up cooper's creek past berlin then called long a coming crossing the watershed and then following great egg harbor river to the seashore another trail long used by the settlers led from salem up to camden barlington and trendon going around the heads of streams it was afterwards abandoned for the shorter route obtained by bridging the streams near their mouths this old trail also extended from the neighborhood of trendon to perth and boy near the mouth of the hudson and thus by supplementing the lower routes made a trail nearly the whole length of the province as a quaker refuge west jersey never attained the success of pennsylvania the political disturbances and the continually threatened loss of self government in both the jerseys were a serious deterrent to quakers who above all else prized rights which they found far better secured in pennsylvania in 1702 when the two jerseys were united into one colony under a government appointed by the crown those rights were more restrictive than ever in all hopes of west jersey becoming a colony under complete quaker control were shattered under governor cornberry the english law was adopted and enforced and the quakers were disqualified from testifying in court unless they took an oath and were prohibited from serving on juries or holding any office of trust cornberry's judges wore scarlet robes powdered rigs cocktails gold lace inside arms they were conducted to the courthouse by the sheriff's cavalcade and opened court with great parade and ceremony such a spectacle of pomp was sufficient to divert the flow of quaker immigrants to pennsylvania where the government was entirely in quaker hands and where plain and serious ways gave promise of enduring and unmolested prosperity the quakers had altogether 30 meeting houses in west jersey and 11 in east jersey which probably shows about the proportion of quaker influence in the two jerseys many of them have since disappeared some of the early buildings to judge from the pictures were of wood and not particularly pleasing in appearance they were make shifts usually intended to be replaced by better buildings some substantial brick buildings of excellent architecture have survived and their plainness and simplicity combined with excellent proportions and thorough construction are clearly indicative of quaker character there is a particularly interesting one in salem with a magnificent old oak decided another in the village of grenich on the kohan's eat father south and another cross wicks near trinton in west jersey near mount holly was born and lived john wolman a quaker who became eminent throughout the english-speaking world for the simplicity and loftiness of his religious thought as well as for his admirable style of expression his journal once greatly and even extravagantly admired still finds readers get the writings of john wolman by heart said charles lamb and loved the early quakers he was among the quakers one of the first and perhaps the first really earnest advocate of the abolition of slavery the scenes of west jersey and the writings of wolman seem to belong together possibly a feeling for the simplicity of those scenes and their life led what whitman who grew up on long island under quaker influence to spend his last years at camden in west jersey his profound democracy which was very quaker like was more at home there perhaps than anywhere else end of chapter eight chapter nine of the quaker colonies by sydney fisher this libra vox recording is in the public domain planters and traders of southern jersey most of the colonies in america especially the stronger ones had an aristocratic class which was often large and powerful as in the case of vigenia in which usually centered around the governor especially if he were appointed from england by the crown or by a proprietor but there was very little of this social distinction in new jersey her political life had been too much broken up and she had been too long dependent on the governors of new york to have any of those pretty little aristocracies with bright colored clothes and coaches and floor flourishing within her boundaries there seems to have been a faint suggestion of such social pretensions under governor franklin just before the revolution he was beginning to live down the objections to his illegitimate birth and tourism and by his entertainments and manner of living was creating a social following there is said also to have been something a little like the beginning of an aristocracy among the descendants of the Dutch settlers who had ancestral holdings near the Hudson but this amounted to very little class distinctions were not so strongly marked in new jersey as in some other colonies there grew up in southern jersey however a sort of aristocracy of gentlemen farmers who owned large tracts of land and lived in not a little style in good houses on the small streams the northern part of the province largely settled in influence by new englanders was like new england a land of vigorous concentrated town life and small farms the hilly and mountainous nature of the northern section naturally led to small holdings of land but in southern jersey the level sandy tracts of forest were often taken up in large areas in the absence of manufacturing large acreage naturally became as in Virginia and Maryland the only mark of wealth and social distinction the great landlord was looked up to by lesser fry the quaker rule of discontent and sing marrying out of meeting tended to keep a large acreage in the family and to make it larger by marriage a quaker of broad acres would seek for his daughter a young man of another land holding quaker family and would thus join the two estates there was a marked difference between east jersey and west jersey in county organization in west jersey the people tended to become planters their farms and plantations somewhat like those of the far south and the political unit of government was the county in east jersey the town was the starting point and the county marked the boundaries of a collection of towns this curious difference the result of soil climate and methods of life shows itself in other estates wherever south and north meet Illinois is an example where the southern part of the state is governed by the county system and the northern part by the town system the lumberman too in clearing off the primeval forest and selling the timber usually dealt in immense acreage some families it is said can be traced steadily proceeding southward as they stripped off the forest and started sawmills and gristmills on the little streams that trickle from the swamps and like beavers making with their dams those pretty ponds which modern lovers of the picturesque are now so eager to find a good deal of the lumbering in the interior of pines tract was carried on by persons who leased the premises from owners who lived on plantations along the Delaware or its tributary streams these operations began soon after 1700 wood roads were cut into the pines sawmills were started and constant use termed some of these wood roads into the highways of modern times there was a speculative tinge in the operations of this landed aristocracy like the old tobacco raising aristocracy of virginia and mariland they were inclined to go from tract to tract skinning what they could from a piece of deforested land and then seeking another virgin tract the roughest methods were used wooden plows brush harrows straw collars grapevine harness and poor shelter for animals and crops but were the virginia methods any better in these operations there was apparently a good deal of sudden profit and mushroom prosperity accompanied by a good deal of debt and insolvency in this too they were like the virginians and carolinians there seem to have been also a good many slaves in west jersey brought as in the southern colonies to work on the largest states and this also no doubt helped to foster the aristocratic feeling the best days of the jersey gentlemen farmers came probably when they could no longer move from tract to tract they settled down and enjoyed a very plentiful if rude existence on the products of their land game and fish amid a fine climate with mosquitoes enough in summer to act as a counter irritant and prevent stagnation from too much ease and prosperity after the manner of colonial times they wove their own clothes from the wool of their own sheep and made their own implements furniture and simple machinery there are still to be found fascinating traces of this old life in and out of the way parts of southern jersey to run upon old houses among the jersey pines still stored with Latin classics and old editions of Shakespeare Addison or Samuel Johnson to come across an old mill with its machinery cog wheels five wheels and all made of wood to find people who make their own oars and the handles of their tools from the materials furnished by their own forest is now unfortunately a refreshment of the spirit that is daily becoming rarer this condition of material and social self-sufficiency lasted in places long after the revolution it was a curious little aristocracy a very faint and faded one lacking the robustness of the far southern type and lacking indeed the real essential of an aristocracy namely political power moreover although there were slaves in new jersey there were not enough of them to exalt the jersey gentlemen farmers into such self-sufficient lords and masters as the virginian and carolinian planters became to search out the remains of this stage of american history however takes one up many pleasant streams flowing out of the forest track to the Delaware on one side or to the ocean on the other this topographical formation of a central ridge or water shed of forest and swamp was a repetition of the same formation in the Delaware peninsula which like southern jersey had originally been a shoal and then an island the jersey water shed with its streams abounding in wood duck and all manner of wildlife must have been in its primeval days as fascinating as some of the streams of the florida cypress swamps toward the ocean wading river the malika the takahoe great egg and on the Delaware side the marise kohansey salem creek old man's raccoon manchua woodberry timber and the rancocas still possess attraction some of them on opposite sides of the divide are not far apart at their sources in the old forest track so that a canoe can be transported over the few miles and thus reverse the state one of these trips up timber creek from the Delaware and across only eight miles of land to the headwaters of great egg harbor river and then down to the ocean thus cutting south jersey and half is a particularly romantic one the heavy woods and swamps of this secluded route along these forest shattered streams are apparently very much as they were 300 years ago the water in all these streams particularly in their upper parts over into the sandy soar is very clean and clear and is often stained by the cedar roots in the swamps are clear brown sometimes almost an amber color one of the streams the rancocas with its many windings to mount holly and then far and then to browns mills seems to be the favorite with canoe men and is probably without an equal in its way for those who love the indians gift that brings us so close to nature the spread of the quaker settlements along Delaware Bay to Cape May was checked by the marise river and its marshes and by the great cedar swamp which crossed the country from Delaware Bay to the ocean and thus made of the Cape May region a sort of island the Cape May region it is true was settled by quakers but most of them came from Long Island rather than from the settlements on the Delaware they have followed whale fishing on Long Island and in pursuit of that occupation some of them have migrated to Cape May where whales were numerous not far off shore the leading early families of Cape May the towns and still wells coarsens lemings londons spices and crests as many of whose descendants still live there were quakers of the Long Island strain the ancestors of the towns and family came to Cape May because he had been imprisoned and fined and threatened with worse under the New York government for assisting his fellow quakers to hold meetings probably the occasional severity of the administration of the New York laws against quakers which were the same as those of England had as much to do as had the whales with the migration to Cape May this quaker civilization extended from Cape May up as far as Great Egg Harbor where the great cedar swamp joined the seashore quaker meeting houses were built that Cape May Galloway, Takahoe and Great Egg all have been abandoned and the buildings themselves have disappeared except that of the Cape May meeting called the old cedar meeting at sea bill and it has no congregation the building is kept in repair by members of the society from other places besides the quakers Cape May included a number of new Haven people the first of whom came there as early as 1640 under the leadership of George Lamberton and Captain Turner seeking profit in whale fishing they were not driven out by the Dutch and Swedes as happened to their companions who attempted to settle higher up the river at Salem and the Scootville about one-fifth of the old family names of Cape May and New Haven are similar and they are supposed to be not a little New England blood not only in Cape May but in the neighboring counties of Cumberland and Salem while the first New Haven whalers came to Cape May in 1640 it is probable that for a long time they only sheltered their vessels there and none of them became prominent settlers until about 1685 Scandinavians contributed another element to the population of the Cape May region very little is definitely known about this settlement but the Swedish names in Cape May and Cumberland counties seem to indicate a migration of Scandinavians from Wilmington and Tinnacombe. Great Egg Harbor which formed the northern part of the Cape May settlement was named from the immense numbers of wildfowl swans ducks and water birds that formerly nested there every summer and have now been driven to Canada or beyond Little Egg Harbor farther up the coast was named for the same reason as well as Egg Island of 300 acres in Delaware Bay since then eaten away by the tide the people of the district had excellent living from the eggs as well as from the plant of full-fowl fish and oysters some farming was done by the inhabitants of Cape May and many cattle marked with brands but in a half-wild state were kept out on the uninhabited beaches which have now become seaside summer cities some of the cattle were still running wild on the beaches down to the time of the civil war the settlers mined the valuable white cedar from the swamps for shingles and boards leaving great pool holes in the swamps which even today sometimes trapped the unwary sportsmen the women knitted innumerable mittens and also made wampum or indian money from the clam and oyster shells an important means of exchange in the indian trade all over the colonies and even to some extent among the colonists themselves the Cape May people built sloops for carrying the white cedar the mittens oysters and wampum to the outside world they sold a great deal of their cedar in long island road island and Connecticut Philadelphia finally became their market for oysters and also for lumber corn and the whale bone and oil their sloops also traded to the southern colonies and even to the west indies they were an interesting little community these Cape May people very isolated and dependent on the water and on their boats for they were completely cut off by the great cedar swamp which stretched across the point and separated them from the rest of the coast this troublesome swamp was not bridged for many years and even then the roads to it were long slow and too sandy for transporting anything of much bulk next above Cape May on the coast was another isolated patch of civilization which while not an island was nevertheless cut off on the south by great egg harbor with its river and marshes and on the north by little egg harbor with a mullica river and its marshes extending far inland the people in this district also lived somewhat to themselves to the north laver district which extended to sandy hook also with its distinct set of people the people of the Cape became in colonial times clever traders in various pursuits although in one sense they were as isolated as islanders their adventurous life on the sea gave them breadth of view by their thrift and innumerable shrewd and persistent ways they amass competencies and estates for their families Aaron Leeming for example who died in 1780 left in a state of nearly one million dollars some kept diaries which have become historically valuable ensuring not only their history but their good education and the peculiar cast of their mind for keen trading as well as their rigid economy and integrity one character Jacob Spicer a prosperous colonial insisted on having everything made at home by his sons and daughters shoes clothes leather breaches wampum even shoe thread calculating the cost of everything to a fraction and economizing to the last penny of money and the last second of time yet in the course of a year he used 52 gallons of rum 10 of wine and two barrels of cider apparently in those days hard labor and hard drinking went well together the Cape made people relying almost entirely on the water for communication and trade soon took to piloting vessels in the Delaware River and some of them still follow this occupation they also became skillful sailors and builders of small craft and it is not surprising to learn that Jay Cox Swain and his sons introduced in 1811 the center board for keeping flat bottom craft closer to the wind they are said to have taken out a patent for this invention and are given the credit of being the originators of the idea but the device was known in England in 1774 was introduced in massachusetts in the same year and may have been used long before by the Dutch the need of it however was no doubt strongly impressed upon the Cape made people by the difficulties which their little sloops experienced in beating home against contrary winds some of them indeed spent weeks inside of the Cape unable to make it one slooped the Nancy 72 days from the Marara hung off and on for 43 days from December 25 1787 to February 6 1788 and was driven off 15 times before she finally got into herford inlet sometimes better sailing craft had to go out and bring in such distressed vessels the early boats were no doubt badly constructed but in the end apprenticeship to dire necessity made the Cape May sailors masters of seamanship and the windward art Wilson the naturalist spent a great deal of time in the Cape May region because of the great variety of birds to be found there southern types like the Florida egret ventured even so far north and it was a stopping place for migrating birds notably woodcock on their northern and southern journeys men of the stone age had once been numerous in this region as the remains of village plats and great shell heaps bore witness it was a resting point for all forms of life that much traveled the ventures gentlemen of the sea captain kid according to popular legend was a frequent visitor to this coast in later times beginning in 1801 the Cape became one of the earliest of the summer resorts the famous Commodore Decatur was among the first distinguished men to be attracted by the simple seaside charm of the place long before it was destroyed by wealth and crowds year by year he used to measure and record at one spot the encroachment of the sea upon the beach where today the sea washes and the steel pier extends once lay cornfields for a hundred years it was a favorite resting place for statesmen and politicians of national eminence they travel there by stage sailing sloop or their own wagons people from baltimore and the south more particularly sought the place because it was easily accessible from the head of chesapeake bay by an old railroad long since abandoned to new castle on the Delaware when sail or steamboats went to Cape May this avoided the tedious stage right over the sandy jersey roads presidents cabinet officers senators and congressmen sought the invigorating air of the cape and the attractions of the old village its seafaring life the sailing fishing and bathing on the best beach of the coast congress hall their favorite hotel became famous and during a large part of the 19th century presidential nominations and policies are said to have been planned within its walls end of chapter nine chapter 10 of the quaker colonies by sydney fischer this libra vox recording is in the public domain the scotch covenanters and others in east jersey east jersey was totally different in its topography from west jersey the northern half of the state is a region of mountains and lakes as part of the original continent it had been under the ice sheet of the glacial age and was very unlike the level of sand swamps and pine barons of west jersey which had arisen as a shoal and island from the sea the only place in east jersey where settlement was at all easy was along the open meadows which were reached by water near the mouth of the hudson round newark bay and along the hackensack river the dutch by the discoveries of henry hudson in 16109 claimed the whole region between the hudson and the delaware they settled part of east jersey opposite their headquarters at new york and called it pavonia but their cruel massacre of some indians who sought refuge among them at pavonia destroyed the prospects of the settlement the indians revenge themselves by massacring the dutch again and again every time they attempted to reestablish pavonia this kept the dutch out of east jersey until 1660 when they succeeded in establishing bergen between newark bay and the hudson the dutch authority in america was overthrown in 1664 by charles the second who had already given all new jersey to his brother the duke of york colonel richard nickles commanded the british expedition that seized the dutch possessions and he had been given full power as deputy governor of all the duke of york's vast territory meantime the new england puritans seem to have kept their eyes on east jersey as a desirable region and the moment the connecticut puritans heard of nickles appointment they applied to him for a grant of a large tract of land on newark bay in the next year 1665 he gave them another tract from the mouth of the rara ten to sandy hook and soon the villages of shrewsbury and middletown were started meantime however unknown to nickles the duke of york in england had given all of new jersey to lord barkley and sir george carteret as has already been pointed out they had divided the province between them and east jersey had fallen to carteret who sent out with some immigrants his relative billop carteret as governor governor carteret was of course very much surprised to find so much of the best land already occupied by the excellent and thrifty yankies as a consequence litigation and sometimes civil war over this unlucky mistake lasted for a hundred years many of the yankee settlers under the nickles grant refused to pay quid rents to carteret or his successors and in spite of a commission of inquiry from england in 1751 and a chance resuit they held their own until the revolution of 1776 extinguished all british authority there was therefore from the beginning a strong new england tinge in east jersey which has lasted to this day governor carteret established a village on newark bay which still bears the name elizabeth which he gave it in honor of the wife of the proprietor and he made it the capital there were also immigrants from scotland and england but puritans from long island and new england continued to settle round newark bay by virtue either of character or numbers new englanders were evidently the controlling element for they established the new england system of town government and imposed strict connecticut laws making 12 crimes punishable with death soon there were flourishing little villages newark and elizabeth besides middle town and shrewsbury the next year pizca towa and woodbridge were added newark and the region rounded including the oranges was settled by very exclusive puritans or congregationalists as they are now called some 30 families from four connecticut towns millford gilford broadford and new haven they decided that only church members should hold office and vote governor carteret ruled the colony with an appointive council and a general assembly elected by the people the typical colonial form of government his administration lasted from 1665 to his death in 1682 and there's nothing very remarkable to record except the rebellion of the new englanders especially those who had received their land from nickels such independent connecticut people were of course quite out of place in a proprietary colony and when in 1670 the first collection of quit rents was attempted they broke out in violent opposition in which the settlers of elizabeth were prominent in 1672 they elected a revolutionary assembly of their own and in place of the deputy governor appointed as proprietor a natural son of carteret they began imprisoning former officers and confiscating estates in the most approved revolutionary form and for a time had the whole government in their control it required the interference of the duke of york of the proprietors and of the british crown to allay the little tempest and three years were given in which to pay the quit rents after the death of sir george carteret in 1680 his province of east jersey was sold to weam penn and 11 other quakers for the sum of 3400 pounds colonies seem to have been comparatively inexpensive luxuries in those days a few years before in 1675 penn and some other quakers had as has already been related gained control of west jersey for the still smaller sum of 1000 pounds and had established it as a quaker refuge it might be supposed that they now had the same purpose and view in east jersey but apparently their intention was to create a refuge for presbyterians the famous scotch covenanters much persecuted at that time under charles the second it was forcing them to conform to the church of england penn and his fellow proprietors of east jersey each joe's a partner most of them scotch men two of whom the earl of perth and lord drummond were prominent men to this mixed body of quakers other dissenters and some papers 24 proprietors and all the duke of your reconfirmed by special patent their right to east jersey under their urging a few scotch covenanters began to arrive and seem to have first established themselves at perth and boy which they named from the scottish earl of perth and an indian word meaning point this settlement they expected to become a great commercial port rivaling new york curiously enough robert bar clay the first governor appointed was not only a scotch man but also a quaker and a theologian whose apology for the true christian divinity 1678 is regarded to this day as the best statement of the original quaker doctrine he remained in england however and the deputies whom he sent out to rule the colony had a troublesome time of it that quaker should establish a refuge for presbyterian seems at first peculiar but it was in accord with their general philanthropic plan to help the oppressed and suffering to rescue prisoners and exiles and especially to ameliorate the horrible condition of people confined in the english dungeons and prisons many vivid pictures of how the scotch covenanters were hunted down like wild beasts may be found in english histories and novels when their lives were spared they often met a fate worse than death in the loathsome dungeons and to which thousands of quakers of that time were also thrust a large part of william penn's life as a courtier was spent in rescuing prisoners exiles and condemned persons of all sorts and not merely those of his own faith so the undertaking to make of jersey two colonies one a refuge for quakers and the other a refuge for covenanters it was natural enough and it was a very broad-minded plan for that age in 1683 a few years after the quaker control of east jersey began a new and fiercer persecution of the covenanters was started in the old country and shortly afterwards manma's insurrection in england broke out and was followed by a most bloody proscription and punishment the greatest efforts were made to induce those still untouched to fly for refuge to east jersey but strange to say comparatively few of them came it is another proof of the sturdiness and devotion which has filled so many pages of history and romance with their praise that as a class the covenanters remained at home to establish their faith with torture martyrdom and death in 1685 the duke of york ascended the throne of england as james the second and all that was naturally to be expected from such a bigoted despot was soon realized the persecutions of the covenanters grew worse crowded into prisons to die of thirst and suffocation shot down on the highways tied to stakes to be drowned by the rising tide the whole calvinistic population of scotland seemed doomed to extermination again they were told of america as the only place where religious liberty was allowed and in addition a book was circulated among them called the model of the government of the province of east jersey in america these efforts were partially successful more covenanters came than before but nothing like the numbers of quakers that flocked to pennsylvania the whole population of east jersey new englanders dutch scotch covenanters and all did not exceed five thousand and possibly was not over four thousand some french huganots such as came to many of the english colonies after the revocation of the edict of manse of 1685 were added to the east jersey population a few went to salem in west jersey and some of these became quakers in both the jerseys as elsewhere they became prominent and influential in all spheres of life there was a decided dutch influence it is said in the part nearest new york emanating from the bergen settlement in which the dutch had succeeded in establishing themselves in 1660 after the indians had twice driven them from pavonia many descendants of dutch families are still found in that region many dutch characteristics were to be found in that region throughout colonial times many of the houses had dutch stoops or porches at the door with seats where the family and visitors sat on summer evenings to smoke and gossip long dutch spouts extended out from the east to discharge the rainwater into the street but the prevailing tone of east jersey seems to have been set by the scotch presbyterians and the new england congregationalists the college of new jersey after it known as princeton established in 1747 was the result of a movement among the presbyterians of east jersey and new york all these elements of east jersey scotch covenanters connecticut puritans huganots and dutch of the dutch reform church were in a sense different but in reality very much in accord and congenial in their ideas of religion and politics they were all sturdy freedom loving protestants and they set the tone that prevails in east jersey to this day their strict discipline and their uncompromising thrift may now seem narrow and harsh but it made them what they were and it has left a legacy of order and prosperity under which alien religions and races are eager to seek protection in its foundation the quakers may claim a share the new king james the second was inclined to reassume jurisdiction and extend the power of the governor of new york over east jersey in spite of his grant to sir george carterette in fact he desired to put new england new york and new jersey under one strong government centered at new york to abolish their charters to extinguish popular government and to make them all mere royal dependencies in pursuance of his general policy of establishing an absolute monarchy and a papal church in england the curse of east jersey's existence was to be always an appendage of new york or to be threatened with that condition the inhabitants now had to enter their vessels and pay duties at new york ritz were issued by order of the king putting both the jerseys in all new england under the new york governor step by step the plans for amalgamation and despotism moved on successfully when suddenly the english revolution of 1688 put an end to the whole magnificent scheme drove the king into exile and placed william of orange on the throne the proprietaries of both jerseys reassume their former authority but the new york assembly attempted to exercise control over east jersey and to levy duties on its exports the two provinces were soon on the eve of a little war for 12 or 15 years east jersey was in disorder with seditious meetings mob rule judges and sheriffs attacked while performing their duty the proprietors claiming quit rents from the people the people resisting and the british privy council threatening a suit to take the province from the proprietors to make a crown colony of it the period is known in the history of this colony as the revolution under the threat of the privy council to take over the province the proprietors of both east and west jersey surrendered their rights of political government retaining their ownership of land and quit rents and the two jerseys were united under one government in 1702 its subsequent history demands another chapter end of chapter 10