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 time united with New York, and royal governors fell heir to the troubles of the former proprietors as they also tried to combine administration with the enlargement of their private estates. Undeterred by the past record of the colony, Edward Hyde, eldest son of Lord Clarendon, driven to distraction by his English creditors, secured a place at the head of the combined provinces and in a remarkably short time restored his shattered finances. Incidentally he was aided by an astute chief justice, Roger Mompesson, who had also temporarily "stepped abroad to ease his fortune of some of his father's debts." If the residents of New Jersey were unable to defeat the designs of such adepts in administration, they were at least dexterous enough to block efforts to force upon them the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England. Even when they were later given a separate royal governor of their own, they continued to do battle with the executive over laws and taxes, and so made their way, with more or less tempest, down the stream of time to the crisis of the Revolution.

The numerous and varied discouragements under which the Carolina and Jersey proprietors labored did not frighten a young man of large fortune and discreet address who also had a substantial claim upon the attentions of Charles II—a young Quaker, William Penn. As a student at Oxford, Penn had been drawn to the religious life and with utter devotion had cast in his lot with the despised and persecuted sect of Friends, then more frequently called Ranters or Quakers. Neither the harsh régime of the prison to which he was more than once committed nor the heavy blows of his irate father could shake his determination, and after the death of his stern parent in 1670, the young man, finding himself in possession of considerable wealth, became interested in America as a religious haven for his brethren and a place for prudent investment.