The Quaker purchase.
Throughout 1672 there was much turbulence, owing to disputes about quit-rents between the inhabitants and the proprietors. Berkeley was by this time thoroughly dissatisfied, and sold his undivided moiety of the province for a thousand pounds to a party of Quakers who desired to found a retreat for their sect; nine tenths of this purchase soon (1674) fell into the hands of William Penn and other Friends who were associated with him. Two years later (1676) the Penn party purchased the remainder of the Quaker interest.
The Jerseys divided.
In 1673 the Dutch recaptured the district. When they were obliged by treaty (1674) to give it back to the English, Charles II. and the Duke of York reaffirmed Sir George Carteret's claim in New Jersey. The new charter for the first time made a division of the country, giving Carteret the eastern part,—much more than one half,—and leaving the rest to the Quaker proprietors. In 1676, Carteret and the Quakers agreed upon a boundary line, running from Little Egg Harbor northwest to the Delaware, at 41° 40´.
West New Jersey.
In West New Jersey the Quakers set up a liberal government, in which the chief features were religious toleration, a representative assembly, and an executive council, whose members—"ten honest and able men fit for government"—were to be elected by the assembly. As a proprietary body, the framers of these "concessions and agreements" retained no authority for themselves; they truly said, "We put the power in the people." To this refuge for the oppressed, four hundred Quakers came out from England in 1677.
East New Jersey.
Sir George Carteret died in 1680, and in 1682 William Penn and twenty-four associates—among whom were several Scotch Presbyterians—purchased East New Jersey from the Carteret heirs. A government was established similar to that in the western colony, except that the new proprietors and their deputies were to form the executive council. In neither colony were the public offices restricted to Quakers, and every Christian possessed the elective franchise.
Trouble with the Duke of York.
Both the Jerseys had made excellent progress; but for several years there was difficulty with Andros (page [205]), who claimed that the country was still the property of the Duke of York and therefore within his jurisdiction, and who attempted to levy taxes. There was much bitterness over the dispute, in the course of which Andros displayed a despotic temper; but in the end the duke's claims were overruled by the English arbitrator.