In 1681, Jennings being appointed governor of West Jersey, the first legislative assembly was convened, and laws were enacted based on the Quakers’ view of religion and morality. By their laws, all distinctions of faith, wealth, or race, were rejected; it was the universal humanity for which they legislated. For the expenses of their government £200 were levied, to be paid in corn, skins, or money. The salary of their governor was £20 a year; they prohibited the sale of ardent spirits to the Indians; and in all criminal cases, excepting treason, murder and theft, the person aggrieved had the power to pardon the offender.
The state of West Jersey presented a picture of a practical Utopia; its laws were based on the broadest principles of Christianity and faith in an improved and improvable humanity; it was an experiment in human virtue, and bore the test. The few hundred souls who commenced it, the little band of Friends, grew soon into thousands, and God’s peace rested on them like a visible blessing, under which they, the meek and longsuffering, literally began to possess the earth with an overflowing measure of joy. A kindly and pleasant intercourse commenced now between the Friends on each side the Atlantic; the cup of the oppressed and persecuted ran over with blessings!—“Friends,” wrote George Fox, and others, in a spirit of loving admonition, “Friends that are gone to make plantations in America, keep the plantations in your hearts, that your own vines and lilies be not hurt. You that are governors and judges, eyes you should be to the blind, and feet to the lame, and fathers to the poor; that you may gain the blessing of those who are ready to perish, and cause the widow’s heart to sing for gladness. If you rejoice because your hand hath gotten much; if you say to fine gold, Thou art my confidence, you will have denied the God that is above. The Lord is ruler among nations; he will crown his people with dominion.”
The first trouble which West Jersey knew, was that Byllinge, the original proprietary, claimed the right to appoint the deputy-governor; this led to some dispute, but was finally settled by such alteration in the constitution as enabled them to choose their own governor; after which all went well.
On the death of Sir George Carteret, the patentee of East Jersey, this portion of his estates was offered for sale, and William Penn and eleven others, in 1682, became the purchasers. But East Jersey, settled principally by Puritans, presented a different character to the western portion of the province. On the change of proprietaries, Robert Barclay, one of twelve Scotch proprietaries, several of whom were not Quakers, and who were now associated with the first twelve, was appointed governor for life; but he never assumed office himself, appointing Rudyard as his deputy. Great numbers of Scotch emigrants, principally from Aberdeen, Barclay’s native county, removed to East Jersey. Rudyard was succeeded as deputy-governor, in 1684, by Gawin Laurie, a Scotch Quaker and merchant of London, who endeavoured, but in vain, to establish a commercial capital at Perth Amboy, on Raritan Bay, to rival New York.
Thus were the Quakers firmly established in the New World; like the Puritans of New England, whom they equalled in stability and every sterling quality of character, they took deep root wherever they fixed themselves. We must now follow them to the other side of the Delaware, where William Penn is at this very time planting his colony of peace.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE SETTLEMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Forty years before the grant of Pennsylvania to William Penn, the western bank of the Delaware river was settled by Swedes, as we have already related. Penn received a territory, the soil of which was already broken by the European planter.
Of William Penn himself, one of the most remarkable men of his age, and the greatest of the American legislators, we must be allowed to say a few words. By his mother’s side he was of Dutch origin, and his father was Admiral Penn, commander of the English fleet at the conquest of Jamaica, and who afterwards distinguished himself under the Duke of York in the war with the Dutch.
William Penn, born in 1644, was the only son of his parents. At so early an age as eleven, as he himself relates, he was suddenly surprised “with an inward comfort and an external glory in the belief of God, and his communion with the soul.” His attention was first turned to the Quakers by the preaching of Thomas Loe; and while at Oxford he and other students withdrew themselves from the established worship, and held their own private religious meetings. They were fined for nonconformity, but to no purpose; and finally were expelled for refusing to wear surplices, which custom was then revived in the college, as well as for disrobing others of them, as a relic of popery. His father, displeased by these religious excesses, and hoping to turn his mind from them, sent him to travel for two years on the continent, after which he studied law in Lincoln’s Inn. Thus, in early manhood perfected by travel and study, he is described as being of “engaging manners, of great natural vivacity and gay good humour, and so skilled in the use of the sword, that he could easily disarm his antagonist.” Every worldly advantage was prepared for him, through the influence of his father and the favour of his sovereign. But his mind was still deeply impressed with “a sense of the vanity of the world, and the irreligiousness of its religion.”
In 1666 he went to Ireland to manage his father’s estates, where he became an openly professing Quaker. “God,” says he, “in his everlasting kindness having guided my feet, in the flower of my youth, when about two-and-twenty years of age.” Apprehended at a Quakers’ meeting held at Cork, he and others were committed to prison, he refusing to find bail for himself.