354 XVI. QUAKERISM AS WIDE AS HUMANITY. CHAP. proud flesh." This was not done for want of courtesy, which "no religion destroys;" but he knew that the hat was the symbol of enfranchisement, worn before the king by the peers of the realm, in token of equality; and the symbol, as adopted by the Quaker, was a constant proclamation that all men are equal. Thus the doctrine of George Fox was not only a plebeian form of philosophy, but also the prophecy of political changes. The spirit that made to him the revelation was the invisible spirit of the age, rendered wise by tradition, and excited to insurrection by the enthusiasm of liberty and religion. Every where in Europe, therefore, the Quakers were exposed to persecution. Their seriousness was called melancholy fanaticism; their boldness, self-will; their frugality, covetousness; their freedom, infidelity; their conscience, rebellion. In England, the general laws against dissenters, the statute against Papists, and special statutes against themselves, put them at the mercy of every malignant informer. They were hated by the church and the Presbyterians, by the peers and the king. The codes of that day describe them as "an abominable sect;" "their principles as inconsistent with any kind of government." During the Long Parliament, in the time of the protectorate, at the restoration, in England, in New England, in the Dutch colony of New Netherlands, every where, and for wearisome years, they were exposed to perpetual dangers and griefs; they were whipped, crowded into jails among felons, kept in dungeons foul and gloomy beyond imagination, fined, exiled, sold into colonial bondage. They bore the brunt of the persecution of the dissenters. Imprisoned in winter without fire, Sewell, they perished from frost. Some were victims to the barbarous cruelty of the jailer. Twice George Fox 534. XVI. 356. narrowly escaped death. The despised people braved CHAP every danger to continue their assemblies. Haled out by violence, they returned. When their meeting-houses 4,484, were torn down, they gathered openly on the ruins. They could not be dissolved by armed men; and when their opposers took shovels to throw rubbish on them, they stood close together, "willing to have been buried alive, witnessing for the Lord." They were exceeding great sufferers for their profession, and in some cases treated worse than the worst of the race. They were as poor sheep appointed to the slaughter, and as a people killed all day long. Fox, Pref. vii. 10 Mar. Is it strange that they looked beyond the Atlantic 1674 for a refuge? When New Netherlands was recovered from the United Provinces, Berkeley and Carteret entered again into possession of their province. For Berkeley, already a very old man, the visions of colonial fortune had not been realized; there was nothing before him but contests for quitrents with settlers resolved on governing themselves; and in March, 1674, a few 1674 months after the return of George Fox from his pil- 18. grimage to all our colonies from Carolina to Rhode Island, the haughty peer, for a thousand pounds, sold the moiety of New Jersey to Quakers, to John Fenwick in trust for Edward Byllinge and his assigns. A dispute between Byllinge and Fenwick was allayed by the benevolent decision of William Penn; and in 1675, 1675 Fenwick, with a large company and several families, set sail in the Griffith for the asylum of Friends. Ascending the Delaware, he landed on a pleasant, fertile spot, and as the outward world easily takes the hues of men's minds, he called the place Salem, for it seemed the dwelling-place of peace. Byllinge was embarrassed in his fortunes; Gawen 356 QUAKER SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. XVI. CHAP. Laurie, William Penn, and Nicholas Lucas, became his assigns as trustees for his creditors, and shares in the undivided moiety of New Jersey were offered for sale. As an affair of property, it was like our land companies of to-day; except that in those days speculators bought acres by the hundred thousand. But the Quakers wished more; they desired to possess a territory where they could institute a government; and Carteret readily agreed to a division, for his partners left him the best 1676. of the bargain. And now that the men who had 26. about to turn the world upside down, were possessed Aug. gone of a province, what system of politics would they adopt? The light, that lighteth every man, shone brightly in the Pilgrims of Plymouth, the Calvinists of Hooker and Haynes, and in the freemen of Virginia, when the transient abolition of monarchy compelled even royalists to look from the throne to a surer guide in the heart; the Quakers, following the same exalted instincts, could but renew the fundamental legislation of the men of the Mayflower, of Hartford, and of the Old Dominion. "The CONCESSIONS are such as Friends approve of;" this is the message of the Quaker proprietaries in England to the few who had emigrated: "We lay a foundation for after ages to understand their liberty as Christians and as men, that they may not be brought into bondage, but by their own consent; for we put THE POWER IN THE 1677. PEOPLE." And on the third day of March, 1677, the 3. charter, or fundamental laws, of West New Jersey Mar. were perfected and published. They are written with almost as much method as our present constitutions, and recognize the principle of democratic equality as unconditionally and universally as the Quaker society itself. XVI. Smith, 528-539 81. No man, nor number of men, hath power over con- CHAP. science. No person shall at any time, in any ways, or on any pretence, be called in question, or in the least 1677 punished or hurt for opinion in religion.-The general assembly shall be chosen, not by the confused way of cries and voices, but by the balloting box.-Every man is capable to choose or be chosen.-The electors shall give their respective deputies instructions at large, which these, in their turn, by indentures under hand and seal, shall bind themselves to obey. The disobedient deputy may be questioned before the assembly by any one of his electors. Each member is to be allowed one shilling a day, to be paid by his immediate constituents, "that he may be known as the servant of the people."-The executive power rested with ten commissioners, to be appointed by the assembly; justices and constables were chosen directly by the people; the judges, appointed by the general assembly, retained office but two years at the most, and sat in the courts but as assistants to the jury. In the twelve men, and in them only, judgment resides; in them and in the general assembly rests discretion as to punishments. "All and every person in the province, shall, by the help of the Lord and these fundamentals, be free from oppression and slavery." No man can be imprisoned for debt. Courts were to be managed without the necessity of an attorney or counsellor. The native was protected against encroachments; the helpless orphan educated by the state. Immediately the English Quakers, with the good wishes of Charles II., flocked to West New Jersey, and commissioners, possessing a temporary authority, were sent to administer affairs, till a popular government could be instituted. When the vessel, freighted with 358 XVI. QUAKER CONTROVERSY WITH THE DUKE OF YORK. CHAP. the men of peace, arrived in America, Andros, the governor of New York, claimed jurisdiction over their 1677. territory. The claim, which, on the feudal system, was perhaps a just one, was compromised as a present question, and referred for decision to England. Meantime lands were purchased of the Indians; the planters numbered nearly four hundred souls; and already at Burlington, under a tent covered with sail-cloth, the Quakers began to hold religious meetings.' The Indian kings also gathered in council under the shades of the 1678. Burlington forests, and declared their joy at the prospect of permanent peace. "You are our brothers," said the sachems, "and we will live like brothers with you. We will have a broad path for you and us to walk in. If an Englishman falls asleep in this path, the Indian shall pass him by, and say, He is an Englishman; he is asleep; let him alone. The path shall be plain; there shall not be in it a stump to hurt the feet." 1678 10 Every thing augured success to the colony, but that, at Newcastle, the agent of the duke of York, who still possessed Delaware, exacted customs of the ships ascending to New Jersey. It may have been honestly believed, that his jurisdiction included the whole river; when urgent remonstrances were made, the duke freely referred the question to a disinterested commission. The argument of the Quakers breathes the spirit of Anglo-Saxons. "An express grant of the powers of government 680. induced us to buy the moiety of New Jersey. If we could not assure people of an easy, free, and safe government, liberty of conscience, and an inviolable pos 1 Haz. Reg. vi 182. 2 Smith's New Jersey, 100. |