Sloughter signing Leisler's Death Warrant.
[1700]
From this time till the American Revolution New York continued a
province of the Crown. Royal governor succeeded royal governor, some of
them better, some worse. Of the entire line Bellomont was the most
worthy official, Cornbury the least so. One of the problems which
chiefly worried all of them was how to execute the navigation acts,
which, evaded everywhere, were here unscrupulously defied. Another care
of the governors, in which they succeeded but very imperfectly, was to
establish the English Church in the colony. A third was the
disfranchisement of Catholics. This they accomplished, the legislature
concurring, and the disability continued during the entire colonial
period.
Hottest struggle of all occurred over the question of the colony's right
of self-taxation. The democracy stood for this with the utmost
firmness, and even the higher classes favored rather than opposed. The
governors, Cornbury and Lovelace, most frantically, but in vain,
expostulated, scolded, threatened, till at last it became admitted by
law in the colony that no tax whatever could, on any pretext, be levied
save by act of the people's representatives.
Dutch America, it will be remembered, had reached southward to the
Delaware River, and this lower portion passed with the rest to the Duke
of York in 1664. The territory between the Hudson and the Delaware,
under the name of New Jersey, he made over to Lord Berkeley and Sir
George Carteret, proprietaries, who favored the freest institutions,
civil and religious. The population was for long very sparse and, as it
grew, very miscellaneous. Dutch, Swedes, English, Quakers, and Puritans
from New England were represented.
Seal of the Carterets.
After the English recovery Berkeley disposed of his undivided half of
the province, subsequently set off as West Jersey, to one Bylling, a
Quaker, who in a little time assigned it to Lawrie, Lucas, Penn, and
other Quakers. West Jersey became as much a Quaker paradise as
Pennsylvania. Penn with eleven of his brethren, also bought, of
Carteret's heirs, East Jersey, but here Puritan rather than Quaker
influence prevailed.
Seal of East Jersey.
The Jersey plantations came of course under Andros, and after his fall
its proprietors did not recover their political authority. For twelve
years, while they were endeavoring to do this, partial anarchy cursed
the province, and at length in 1702 they surrendered their rights to the
Crown, the Jerseys, now made one, becoming directly subject to Queen
Anne. The province had its own legislature and, till 1741, the same
governors as New York. It also had mainly the same political
vicissitudes, and with the same result.
William Penn, the famous Quaker, received the proprietorship of
Pennsylvania in payment of a claim for sixteen thousand pounds against
the English Government. This had been left him by his father, Sir
William Penn, a distinguished naval commander in the Dutch war of
1665-67, when he had borne chief part in the conquest of Jamaica.
Wampum received by Penn in Commemoration of the Indian Treaty.
William Penn was among the most cultivated men of his time, polished by
study and travel, deeply read in law and philosophy. He had fortune, and
many friends at court, including Charles II. himself. He needed but to
conform, and great place was his. But conform he would not. True to the
inner light, braving the scoffs of all his friends, expelled from Oxford
University, beaten from his own father's door, imprisoned now nine
months in London Tower, now six in Newgate, this heroic spirit
persistently went the Quaker way. In despair of securing in England
freedom for distressed consciences he turned his thoughts toward
America, there to try his "holy experiment."
William Penn; From the copy by Francis Race in the
National Museum, Philadelphia.
The charter from Charles II. was drawn by Penn's own hand and was nobly
liberal. It ordained perfect religious toleration for all Christians,
and forbade taxation save by the provincial assembly or the English
Parliament. Under William and Mary, greatly to his grief, Penn was
forced to sanction the penal laws against Catholics; but they were most
leniently administered, which brought upon the large-minded proprietary
much trouble with the home government.
As Pennsylvania, owing to the righteous and loving procedure of Penn
toward them, suffered nothing from the red men to the west, so was it
fortunately beyond Andros's jurisdiction on the east. Once, from 1692,
for two years, the land was snatched from Penn and placed under a royal
commission. Returning to England in 1684, after a two years' sojourn in
America to get his colony started, the Quaker chief became intimate and
a favorite with James II., devotedly supporting his Declaration of
Indulgence toward Catholics as well as toward all Protestant dissenters.
He tried hard but vainly to win William and Mary to the same policy.
This attitude of his cost him dear, rendering him an object of suspicion
to the men now in power in England. Twice was he accused of treasonable
correspondence with the exiled James II., though never proved guilty.
From 1699 to 1701 he was in America again, thereafter residing in
England till his death in 1718. He had literally given all for his
colony, his efforts on its behalf having been to him, so he wrote in
1710, a cause of grief, trouble, and poverty.