CHAPTER VIII DEVELOPMENT OF THE JERSEYS (1674-1689) 'HEN, in 1674, by the treaty of Westminster, WHE the Jerseys were restored to the English, it became necessary to issue a new grant to the duke of York, a new lease to the proprietaries, and new directions and instructions to the colonists, owing to the fact that "the property of this tract of land was by some persons of that time supposed to be altered by its having been taken and possessed by a foreign power.' Therefore, in the summer of 1674, when Philip Carteret returned with a new commission as governor and new directions for the government of the province,' he was received very graciously by both people and assembly. Until 1674 New Jersey remained an undivided province. To be sure, the term West New Jersey was used for the settlements on the Delaware;* but 1 Short Account of the First Settlement (1735), 16; another view in N. 7. Archives, I., 290. 2 N. 7. Archives, I., 167-175. Whitehead, Civil and Judicial Hist. of N. F., 132, 133. the colonists there obtained the titles to many of their lands from Philip Carteret,' and were represented in the assembly which met in Elizabethtown in October, 1668. Still, they took but little part in the events thus far recounted, and, though numbering a thousand people, were not called upon to pay quit-rents and did not share in the uprising against Carteret. In 1674 a change came about when Berkeley, wearying of his proprietary relation to New Jersey, sold his share of the province for £1000 to Edward Byllynge, a member of the Society of Friends, a brewer of London, a friend of Berkeley's, and a former officer in Cromwell's army. Byllynge placed the management of the business in the hands of a Quaker friend, Major John Fenwick, who, in consideration of a portion of the property, offered to settle the colony and look after the lands and the revenues." The entrance of the Quakers upon the scene was no sudden nor unpremeditated event. For some time members of the society had been looking for a home in America where they might be free from persecution, and many of them went to New England, Long Island, New Jersey, and Carolina. Eighteen were reported at Shrewsbury in 1673.3 In that year George Fox, the founder of the society, 1 Pa. Magazine, XVII., 84, 85. ? Dankers and Sluyter, Journal, 241, 242; N. J. Archives, I., 185, n., 209; Pa. Magazine, V., 312. N. J. Archives, I., 133, 134, 184; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., II., 607, 619. returned from a tour in America, and, understanding the circumstances and opportunities there, he may have been influential in persuading Byllynge to purchase Berkeley's rights. Whether William Penn, son of Admiral Penn, and one of the most important members in England, had any share in the undertaking at this time cannot be determined. He met Fox on his return, and during the year that followed must have discussed with him the situation in America. The desire for an independent colony where they might establish a government embodying their own ideas had long been in the minds of the Quakers, and there is reason to believe that the purchase of Berkeley's share by Byllynge was made in the interest of the whole society. At first the experiment did not succeed. Byllynge and Fenwick could not agree as to the division of the property; and Penn, who lived near Fenwick in England was called in as arbiter. "The present difference between thee and E. B. fills the hearts of Friends with grief," he wrote to Fenwick, who had evidently refused to accept Penn's first award of one-tenth as his share. "I took care to hide the pretences on both hands as to the original of the thing, because it reflects on you both and which is worse on the truth." Fenwick took the case into chancery, with what results we do not know, but he finally accepted the allotment of one-tenth and began to make preparations for crossing to 1 America. No sooner was this difficulty met than another arose. Byllynge became involved in business, and to satisfy his creditors, was compelled to convey his rights (February 14, 1675) to Penn and two distinguished fellow - Quakers, Gawen Lawrie and Nicholas Lucas. Fenwick, too, leased his onetenth to Eldridge and Warner, as security for money borrowed.3 The title to West New Jersey, already sufficiently involved by these transactions, was further complicated by the attitude of the duke of York, who appears at this point to have sought to take back his grant and to avoid a reconveyance. In a letter from Charles II., of June, 1674, Carteret was mentioned as if sole proprietary and all others were ignored.* In the new "lease and release" which the duke finally executed, the province was for the first time divided by a straight line from Barnegat Creek to Rankokus Kill, near Burlington on the Delaware, but no mention is anywhere made of Berkeley's rights or of those to whom these rights had been sold. Whitehead says that he "hesitated, dallied, played fast and loose, equivocated, and held back," and even though he signed the lease to Carteret in 1674, he did not recognize Berkeley's 5 1 Letters in Bowden, Hist. of Friends, I., 391, 392; Harleian MSS., in British Museum, 7001, ff. 300, 301. 2 Johnson, Hist. of Salem, 56–63; Pa. Magazine, V., 327–329. 232, 233. 4 N. 7. Archives, I., 153, 154. • Ibid., 161, sale till August 6, 1680.1 This equivocation had the disastrous effect of clouding the title to West New Jersey and hindering colonization there. There is no reason to believe that Berkeley and Carteret deliberately planned to divide their grant, but the withdrawal of the former from the enterprise and the coming of the Quakers altered the situation. Penn had no desire to join with Carteret in the government of a single province; he wished rather to have a free field wherein to test his own plan of government. The division named in the duke's warrant of 1674 was not equitable, and consequently, in 1676, “after no little labor, trouble, and cost, " a new arrangement was agreed upon. By a "quintipartite" deed (executed by Carteret on one side, and Penn, Lawrie, Lucas, and Byllynge on the other), which rehearsed all the acts thus far determined in the establishment of title, a line was drawn from the "most southwardly point of the east side of Little Egg Harbor" through the province northwestwardly to the junction of the Delaware River with the forty-first parallel of latitude. One part was to be called East New Jersey and the other West New Jersey. In the mean time, Eldridge and Warner had conveyed their rights in Fenwick's tenth to Penn, Lucas, and Lawrie, "the better to 1 Whitehead, Civil and Judicial Hist. of N. J., 77, 78; N. J. Archives, II., 163–167, 324; cf. Cal. of State Pap:, Col., 1677– 1680, § 778. 'N. J. Archives, I., 232, 233. 3 Ibid., 327. Ibid., 205-219. |