Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/115

] under a Dutch governor; but by the treaty of Westminster, concluded the following year, it was agreed that all conquests were to be mutually restored: New York consequently again passed into the hands of the English.

The Duke of York obtained a new grant, which both increased his territorial pretensions and gave him authority "to govern the inhabitants by such ordinances as he and his assigns should establish." Accordingly he sent over Major Edmund Andros, to assume the office of governor, to assert his proprietary rights, and consolidate his scattered territories under one uniform system of administration. With this view, one of the first proceedings of Andros was an expedition to Fort Saybrook, with a small force, in order to enforce the claim of the Duke to all such territory between the Hudson and the Connecticut, as had been settled by the citizens of the latter State. He was astonished at the sturdy resolution of the Connecticut men, who refused even to listen to the reading of his commission, and without violence, but by a display of power which he was unable to resist, compelled him to return disconcerted to New York. There, too, he soon found that there was quite as little disposition quietly to submit to the levying taxes by irresponsible authority, and a clear determination to obtain, if possible, the advantages possessed by the other English colonies under their chartered privileges.

The dissension that had taken place in New Jersey on the subject of the quit-rents, has been spoken of above. Carteret, the governor, who had been compelled to leave the province, had gone to England, whence he shortly returned, invested with fresh powers. Soon after the taking of the province from the Dutch, Berkeley, one of the proprietors, disposed of his share of New Jersey to John Fenwick, in trust for Edward Byllinge, of whom William Penn became one of the assignees. A dispute between the proprietors was settled by the arbitration of Penn, whose name now first appears in connection with American history, and Carteret soon after consented to a formal partition of the province into two parts, called East and West Jersey. The latter became a colony of Quakers, and together with liberty of conscience, democratic equality was established. Lovers of peace themselves, they readily obtained the friendly regard of the Delaware Indians; large numbers of the Quakers emigrated; and the colony soon gave evidence of growth and prosperity. In 1682, East Jersey was purchased from the heirs of Carteret, by twelve Quakers, under the auspices of Penn; and in 1683, the proprietors having increased their number to twenty-four, obtained a new patent from the Duke of York. During the two following years, East Jersey afforded refuge to numbers of Scotch Presbyterians, who had escaped for their lives from the fierce onslaught and proscription to which they had been subjected at home.

Freedom of trade had been established in New Jersey: this was, however, quite obnoxious to Andros, the governor of New York, and he