All went well with the colony, when a difficulty arose between them and Andros, the agent of the Duke of York, who still possessed Delaware, and who demanded customs of all the ships which ascended that river to New Jersey. The Quakers refused to pay them; and the duke, to whom they made their remonstrance, agreed to refer the question to Sir William Jones, an eminent lawyer of that day.
We must give a few clauses from their remonstrance, to show the straightforward and manly spirit of the quaker colonists:—
“An express grant of the powers of government,” say they, “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 possession of their civil rights and freedoms, a mere wilderness would be no encouragement. It were madness to leave a free country to plant a wilderness, and give another person an absolute title to tax us at will.
“The customs imposed by the government of New York are not only a burden but a wrong. The King of England cannot take his subjects’ goods without their consent. This is a home-born right, declared to be law by divers statutes.
“The land belongs to the natives; of the duke we buy nothing but the right of an undisturbed colonisation, with the expectation of some increase of the freedoms of our native country. We have not lost English liberty by leaving England.
“The tax is a surprise to the planter; it is paying for the same thing twice over. By this precedent we are assessed without law, and excluded from our English right of common assent to taxes. Such conduct has destroyed government, but never raised one to true greatness.
“Lastly, to exact such interminable tax, and to continue it after repeated complaints, will be the greatest evidence of a design to introduce, if the crown should ever devolve upon the duke, an unlimited power in England.”
Such plain speaking as this was worthy of the men who bowed and bared the head only to God. Their arguments established their cause. Sir William Jones decided that the duke had no claim to the tax.
In East Jersey also, Andros attempted to exercise, on behalf of the duke, the same arbitrary power, and here also was he opposed. But the measures which he took to enforce obedience were of a more violent character. He sent soldiers to seize Carteret, the governor, who was taken in his bed, and carried prisoner to New York. He summoned a special court for his trial, himself being judge, and though the jury persisted in returning a verdict of acquittal, he was still detained a prisoner.
The result of the decision in favour of the Friends of West Jersey led to the formal relinquishment of all claim to the territory or government by the Duke of York; and shortly afterwards a similar release was made by him on behalf of East Jersey, when that province also became an independent jurisdiction.