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 the new world was long the desire of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, but incessant European wars prevented the establishment of any settlement until after his death. In 1638 fifty colonists landed on the western bank of the Delaware and built Fort Christina on the site of the modern Wilmington. Five years later, on the eastern bank a triangular fort, called Elfsborg, was constructed near the present Salem. But the Swedish rule was short-lived, as in 1655 the settlements surrendered to Peter Stuyvesant and passed under the control of the Dutch. Upon the subsequent history of New Jersey the attempts of Holland and Sweden at colonization had very little influence. The Dutch and Swedes between the Delaware and the Hudson were mostly traders, and therefore did not make many permanent settlements or establish forms of government.

By the English of New England and Virginia the Dutch and Swedes were regarded as intruders, and were repeatedly warned against trespassing on English soil. As early as 1634 a patent had been issued to Sir Edmund Plowden, appointing him governor over New Albion, a tract of land including the present states of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania. In spite of great efforts, however, Sir Edmund failed to plant a colony. In 1634 a party of English from Virginia, having ascended the Delaware and occupied Fort Nassau, which the Dutch had abandoned, were promptly captured by the Dutch, taken to New Amsterdam, and thence sent home, arriving just in time to prevent the departure of a second English expedition up the Delaware. In 1641 English colonists from New Haven migrated southward and planted a settlement on the eastern bank of the Delaware river, declaring it to be a part of the New Haven jurisdiction. In the following year Governor Kieft, with the assistance of the Swedes, arrested the English and sent them back to New Haven.

Many years elapsed before an English sovereign made any effort to oust the Dutch from the dominions he claimed by virtue of the discovery of the Cabots. On the 12th of March 1664 Charles II. bestowed upon his brother James, duke of York, all the lands between the Connecticut river and the eastern side of Delaware Bay, as well as all the islands between Cape Cod and the Hudson river. An expedition was sent from England in May, under the command of Richard Nicolls, and in the following August the English flag floated over New Amsterdam. In October Sir Robert Carr took possession of the settlements on the Delaware, and terminated the rule of the Dutch. The few inhabitants of what is now New Jersey acquiesced in the new order. While the expedition commanded by Nicolls was still at sea, the duke of York, by deeds of lease and release, transferred to Lord John Berkeley, baron of Stratton, and (q.v.), all that part of his new possessions extending eastward from the Delaware Bay and river to the Atlantic Ocean and the Hudson river, and northward from Cape May to a line drawn from the northernmost branch of the Delaware, “which is 41° 40′ lat.,” to the Hudson river in 41° N. lat. To this tract the name of Nova Caesarea, or New Jersey, was given, as the same name had been given in a patent to Carteret issued in 1650, to “a certain island and adjacent islets” near Virginia, in America, which were never settled—in honour of Carteret, who governed the isle of Jersey in 1643–1651 and there entertained Prince Charles during his exile from England. The grant conferred upon Berkeley and Carteret all the territorial rights which the royal charter had conferred upon the duke of York; but whether or not the rights of government went with these soon became a vexed question. In order to attract immigrants, the proprietors in February 1665 published their “Concession and Agreement,” by which they made provision for a governor, a governor’s council, and an assembly chosen by the freemen and having the power to levy taxes. Special inducements in the way of land grants were offered to persons embarking with the first governor. In the meantime Governor Nicolls of New York, ignorant of the grant to Berkeley and Carteret, had approved certain Indian sales of land to settlers within New Jersey, and had confirmed their titles to tracts in what later became Elizabethtown, Middletown and Shrewsbury. In this way he unconsciously opened the way for future trouble. Moreover, when he had learned that the duke had parted with New Jersey he convinced him that it was a great loss, and in the effort to save what was possible, Staten Island was taken from the proprietors on the plea that one arm of the Hudson flowed along its western border.

In August 1665 Philip Carteret, a relative of Sir George, arrived in the province as its first governor. In May 1668 he convoked the first assembly at Elizabethtown. At the next session, in the following November, the towns of Shrewsbury and Middletown declared that they held their grants from Governor Nicolls, and that they were consequently exempt from any quit-rents the proprietors might claim. They refused to pay their share of the public expenses; and their deputies, on refusing to take the oath of allegiance and fidelity, were expelled from the assembly. The disaffection soon spread and led to the so-called “disorganizing” assembly in 1672, which went so far as to choose James Carteret, a landgrave of Carolina and presumably a natural son of Sir George, as “President.” Philip Carteret returned to England and laid the case before the proprietors; they ordered President Carteret to continue on his way to Carolina and confirmed as governor John Berry, whom Governor Carteret had left behind as deputy. The duke of York declared that the grants made by Nicolls were null and void; the king enjoined obedience to the proprietors, and quiet was restored. Another change was impending, however, and in August 1673, when a Dutch fleet appeared off Staten Island, New Jersey for a second time became a part of New Netherland. The settled region was called “Achter Koll,” or “Back Bay,” after Newark Bay, whose waters, lying behind the bay of New York, had to be crossed in order to reach Elizabethtown. The period of Dutch rule was short, and by the treaty of Westminster, of the 9th of February 1674, the territory was restored to England. The crown lawyers decided that the rights of the proprietors of New York and New Jersey had been extinguished by the conquest, and that by treaty the lands had been reconveyed, not to the proprietors, but to the king. On the 13th of June 1674 Charles II. accordingly wrote a letter confirming the title and power of Carteret in the eastern half of New Jersey. No similar grant was made to Berkeley, as on the 18th of March he had sold his interest in the province to John Fenwicke, sometime major in the Parliamentary army and later a member of the Society of Friends, and Edward Byllynge (d. 1687), a Quaker merchant. On the 29th of June the duke of York received a new patent similar to that of 1664, and he at once (on the 28th and 29th of July) confirmed Carteret in all his rights in that portion of New Jersey N. of a line drawn from Barnegat Creek to “Rankokus Kill”—a stream a little S. of the site of Burlington—which was considerably more than one-half of the province. The duke of York commissioned Sir Edmund Andros as governor of his dominions, including “all ye land from ye West side of Connecticut River to ye East side of Delaware Bay.” Sir George Carteret again sent over his kinsman Philip Carteret to be governor of the eastern part of New Jersey, and the two governors arrived in October 1674 in the same ship. A disagreement arose as to