In the midst of their disputes both parties were startled, and brought again into pacific relationship, by the news that the English parliament was about to annul every colonial charter. The occasion was momentous; Penn, who had come to America with the hope of ending his days in this province of his love, found it necessary immediately to return to England, to defend the common rights of himself and Pennsylvania. His hopes seemed in all ways destined to disappointment. At this moment his words to the assembly were: “Since all men are mortal, think of some suitable expedient and provision for your safety, as well in your privileges as your property, and you will find me ready to comply with whatever may render us happy by a nearer union of our interests. Review again your laws; propose new ones that may better your circumstances; and what you do, do quickly. Unanimity and despatch may contribute to the disappointment of those that so long have sought the ruin of our young country.”
The new constitution was called the “Charter of Privileges.” The territories were allowed to separate themselves from Pennsylvania, as they desired; and from that time Delaware has been an independent province. Penn would gladly have legislated for the sanctity of marriage among the slaves, but he was defeated: nor yet could he carry out all his benevolent plans for the Indians, though he obtained a law for the prevention of fraud in trading with them; and again treaties of peace were renewed with the Onondagas and their tributaries on the Susquehanna.
By the Charter of Privileges, which now became the fundamental law as long as the proprietary government lasted, the legislative power was vested in the governor and assembly to be annually chosen, to sit upon its own adjournments, and to propose bills subject only to the assent of the governor. Sheriffs and coroners were appointed by the people; questions of property could not be brought before the governor and council; and the justiciary was left to the legislature, which gave occasion to after disputes. Entire religious liberty was established.
“And now,” says Bancroft, “having divested himself and his successors of any power to injure, Penn had founded a democracy. By the necessities of the case, he remained the feudal sovereign; for only as such could he grant or have maintained the charter of colonial liberties. But time and the people would remove the inconsistency. Having thus given freedom and popular power to his provinces, no strifes remaining but strifes about property, happily for himself, he departed from the young country of his affections.”
Penn left James Logan, for many years the colonial secretary and member of the council, the agent of his private property, who was able, by his mild but firm character, to maintain Penn’s rights against the encroaching, mean spirit of the colonists, whose selfish bargaining contrasted so painfully with the broad liberality of the proprietary.
In England, the virtue and sacrifices of William Penn were not without acknowledgment; he retained his province. His poverty might have induced him to part with it to the crown; but insisting on the liberties which he had granted being unannulled, the crown hardly set any value upon it; and when, distressed and worn out with the angry and unworthy disputes of the province with him on questions of property, he threatened to resign his powers to government, the province, like a spoiled child threatened with the rod, yielded at once and promised no further offending. The early Pennsylvanians were in fact spoiled by the kindness and concessions of Penn; they were incapable of comprehending the breadth of his practical Christianity; they almost despised him for it, and treated him with no consideration.
Writs had been issued by James II. against the charters both of East and West Jersey, and the whole province was placed under the jurisdiction of Andros, governor of New York. The Revolution terminated the authority of Andros; and from June, 1689, to August, 1693, New Jersey had no regular government whatever, both the east and west portions being broken up into factions, headed by different proprietaries, which kept the country in a very unsettled state. At length the proprietaries, threatened by parliament, and finding no means of settling their contending claims, as well as a great falling off in their profits, agreed to surrender their authority to the crown; and in the first year of Queen Anne’s reign, New Jersey became a royal province, the claims of private property being in every case respected.
On the surrender of the proprietary claims to government, the two Jerseys were united in one province, and the government conferred on Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, of whom we shall hear more anon.
The commission and instructions to Lord Cornbury formed the constitution of New Jersey. The legislative power was vested in the governor with the consent of the royal council and representatives of the people; the elective franchise required a property qualification; all laws were subject to a veto of the governor and the crown. The governor, with consent of his council, instituted courts of law and appointed their officers; the people had no part in the justiciary. Liberty of conscience was granted to all but Catholics; and favour was invoked for the Church of England.[[14]] Two of the royal instructions deserve notice: First, “great inconveniences,” says the queen, “may arise by the liberty of printing in our province of New Jersey; therefore, no book, pamphlet, or other matter whatsoever may be printed without a licence.” Secondly, the “traffic in merchantable negroes” was especially enjoined.
A change was come over the administration of New Jersey since the days when honest Thomas Olive, the governor of West Jersey, had been satisfied with a salary of £20 a year, and had administered justice as a magistrate, sitting on the stump of a tree in his field. New Jersey was now a royal united province, and a kinsman of the queen was its ruler; but the change was not palatable to the sturdy quaker and puritan spirit of the colony. The history of Lord Cornbury’s administration was that of continual contention with the assemblies. But through all this, as we shall find was the case in New York, a more vigorous spirit of liberty awoke in the province.