USA > New Jersey > The New Jersey coast in three centuries; history of the New Jersey coast with genealogical and historic-biographical appendix, Vol. I > Part 12
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and for his personal safety it was necessary that he should get out of the way of the then ruling powers. His Lordship came over and surveyed the territory intrusted to his ruling energies, but does not seem to have done much more. He was called on urgent business to England, the trouble which caused his exile having blown over, and he departed hurriedly, leav- ing as his representative a man much better fitted for the position-An- drew Hamilton.
Hamilton was a native of Scotland, and is said to have been engaged in business in Edinburgh when the Proprietors selected him as one of their American representatives. There is not much that has been made clear to us regarding his career prior to crossing the Atlantic, but he seems to have enjoyed the full confidence of Barclay and this associates in the great syndicate. He was the main adviser of Lord Niel Campbell during that aristocratic gentleman's short stay, and became a member of Council. Lord Niel, on his departure, vested the authority of the Govern- orship in Hamilton, and he continued to exercise it until 1688, when Sir Edmund Andros, having been appointed Governor of all of the American settlements from the St. Lawrence to Maryland (with the exception of Pennsylvania) assumed control of the whole of New Jersey. That high- handed official was taught a much needed lesson when he was arrested by the people of Boston, pelted with mud and stones, and in 1690 was sum- marily shipped back to England. He returned to America two years later as Governor of Virginia, but his experiences in New England apparently had a good effect upon his character, for it would seem that-as colonial governors went-he there proved a most praiseworthy executive. While he was in power, however, in the north, Hamilton virtually continued to administer affairs in his old territory. When Andros met his coup in Boston, Hamilton could not understand his own position very clearly, and went to England to lay the entire situation before the Proprietors. His journey was a long one; his vessel was captured by the French, and he did not reach London until May, 1690. It was nearly two years later before he returned to New Jersey, but he had with him authority to act as executive over both divisions. He held his double office until 1697, when the English Parliament, in a fit of jealousy against the Scotch merchants of that time, passed a law that no one not an English born sub- ject of the King should serve in any public office, and to this law Hamilton was compelled to bow and retire. Jeremiah Basse, who succeeded to the New Jersey appointment, proved too meddlesome and incapable to be en- dured for any length of time, and in 1699 Andrew Bowne was appointed Governor of East Jersey, an appointment which he held only a few months. Hamilton was then re-appointed, and served as Governor over both di-
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visions until the two were united, and the precious Lord Cornbury became the first of the royal Governors of New Jersey. Then he accepted the appointment of Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, at the hands of William Penn, and held that office at the time of his death, April 20, 1703.
Hamilton was in many ways one of the most advanced statesmen in the colonies of his time. As an executive he won the approval and con- fidence of those over whom he ruled, and he was a stanch advocate of some scheme of union among the colonies, and that, too, at a time when the idea of such a union being possible was laughed at. But there were others. in New Jersey who advocated a union, and to the credit of Governor Coxe, of West Jersey, it should be said that he not only advocated a union but wrote his views in a work which he published in London. Hamilton organized a postal system for the Colonies, and although it was somewhat in the nature of a monopoly, still it was the beginning of a colonial service. and probably the first real and practical step taken to weld the scattered Colonies of Great Britain in North America into one nation.
The government of West Jersey was administered as follows: Ed- ward Billinge, 1677-87; Samuel Jennings, Deputy, 1677-84; Thomas Oliver, Deputy, 1684-85; John Skene, Deputy, 1685-87; Daniel Coxe, 1687-90; Edward Hunloke, Deputy, 1690; West Jersey Society of Pro- prietors, 1691; Andrew Hamilton, 1692-97; Jeremiah Basse, 1697-99; Andrew Hamilton, 1699-1702.
Like Barclay, the titular Governor of East Jersey, Byllinge never saw the province of which he was the designated ruler. He was a Quaker and bought the territory along with John Fenwick for the purpose of establish- ing colonies of Friends. Fenwick and he did not agree somehow as to details, and Penn, who was called upon to arbitrate between them, as- signed nine-tenths of the entire territory to Byllinge. Soon afterward he fell into financial straits and his property was placed in the hands of trus- tees. Much of the land passed to others, including a syndicate of twenty- four, but Byllinge managed to retain enough interest in the territory to retain a seat among the twenty-four, and was by them named as Governor, an office he continued to hold until his death in 1087.
Byllinge ruled by deputy, but seems to have kept a watchful eye on what was being done in the province. His earliest deputy, Samuel Jen- nings, was one of the most noted local preachers among the Society of Friends. Byllinge appointed him Deputy Governor in 1677, and he proved so capable and popular that the local assembly elected him Governor in 1683. Byllinge denied that the Provincial Assembly had any right in the matter, and to prove the correctness of his view he summarily removed
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Jennings from office as soon as 'he saw no other way of settling the con- troversy. Jennings meekly accepted the order of removal, and went to Pennsylvania. Afterward, however, he became a power for good in the political history of West Jersey. The deputies who succeeded him, Thomas Oliver and John Skene, seem to have kept within the bounds of Byllinge's notions, but, the briefness of their tenures shows that they were neither of them very brilliant administrators. How could they be in such cir- cumstances ?
In Daniel Coxe, who succeeded Byllinge in the Governorship on the death of the latter named, West Jersey had a ruler who lived within its limits and was personally known to many of its people. He was born in England, and was a noted physician in London for many years, his patients including many of the most noted attendants at court. . He invested his wealth largely in land in America, and in receiving his appointment seems to have made up his mind to have his home where he was appointed to rule. His views on his office were explicitly set forth in a letter which he transmitted to his fellow Proprietors shortly after he entered upon his duties.
In 1691 Governor Coxe turned over the government to the West Jersey Society of Proprietors and returned to private life, although his son continued to keep the family name prominent in the Province in various ways. The Proprietors placed the government in the hands of Andrew Hamilton, the wisest thing they could do.
In 1702 the government of the two Jerseys was taken over by the Crown, and Lord Cornbury became Governor-in-Chief of New York and New Jersey. Readers of the history of Colonial America must be ac- quainted with the disgraceful story of this man-a libertine, a swindler, a liar of the most reckless type, and who seems to have had in his entire make-up no single redeeming quality except that of being nominally a de- voted churchman, that is, one who was zealous in making the law to fur- ther the material interest of the body to which he nominally belonged, for, of course, such a man cared nothing about religion for religion's sake. He was too much abased in sin to be fit to wait even upon a door-keeper in the house of the Lord, yet he was wont to boast of how many churches he had caused to be erected. A profligate at home, a disgrace to society there, he was given his Colonial appointment in the hope of recruiting his character and his fortunes. The first was gone beyond any possibility of recovery ; he does not seem even to have attempted the task. To the sec- ond he zealously applied his energies, and "give! give!" was his constant cry to the legislature of New York and afterward to that of New Jersey. But they did not always respond, and his rule was one long continued orgie
HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST. 109
of sins, slander, swindle and blackmail, and ended in his removal in 1708. in answer to many and indignant protests. As soon as he was harried out of office, he was arrested and lodged in jail by his creditors. Afterward it is said he reformed, succeeded his father as Earl of Clarendon, paid off his debts, and sat in solemn judgment in the House of Lords as a heredi- tary peer of Parliament.
Cornbury was succeeded in the governorship of the two provinces. by Lord Lovelace, but he only held the office for a few months.
Governor Hunter, a scion of an old Scottish family, entered upon the duties of the dual governorship June 14, 1710. Like all of his pre- decessors and contemporaries, he had accepted the office with a view of adding to his private fortune, but unlike most of them he had a conscience that prevented him from seeking to increase his wealth by means which were in direct variance to the welfare of the community over which he was appointed to rule. After about a year's experience in America, he saw that the development of the territory under his rule could only be hastened by adding to its population through encouraging and facilitating immigration, and having conceived a scheme about the manufacture of naval stores by which he might enrich himself and afford employment to. many workers, he proceeded to develop the resources of the country and increase his own wealth by the introduction of some three thousand German laborers from the Palatinate. These people were settled in five villages on the banks of the Hudson River, and were to produce tar and turpentine. Their passage money was to be repaid out of their earnings, and on the. same terms they were to be supplied at first with the necessaries of life. As might be expected, the scheme was a failure. The immigrants were: virtually contract slaves, and were so dissatisfied with their lot that they refused to work, and when at length he washed his hands of the whole scheme, and left the immigrants to ship for themselves, "but not outside of the Province," the Governor was very seriously crippled financially. His greatest claim to remembrance is his establish- ing a complete Court of Chancery in New York, and although he doubt- less saw in such a court a rich harvest of fees and opportunities for pat- ronage, the good accomplished by a tribunal of that description, especially in a developing Colony where new and intricate questions were daily demanding decision-decisions which were for all time to rank as pre- cedents-should not be ignored. In many ways Governor Hunter was. a model ruler. In questions of religion he was extremely tolerant, and he believed in every man being permitted to worship as he thought best. He indulged in no wild-cat schemes unless his importation of workers. from the Palatinate be so regarded, and encouraged no extravagant out-
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lay of public money. He understood the art of managing men, and was on equally gool terms with all the parties in the colony. Very popular he was not and never could be, for he represented a sovereign power in the person of the King, while all around him in New York and New Jersey was slowly but surely developing the theory that the source of all power, even the power to name governors and judges, should be the people concerned ; still, he preserved intact the supremacy of his royal master, and maintained peace or the appearance of harmony in the prov- ince, although he foresaw very clearly that a struggle between Britain and the American colonies was certain, sooner or later. "The Colonies were then infants at their mother's breasts," he wrote in 1711 to Lord Bolingbroke, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; "but such as would wean themselves when they came of age."
When Robert Hunter retired from the colony in 1710, he was given an address lauding the administration of his affairs, and the opinion was expressed that he had "governed well and wisely, like a prudent magis- trate, like an affectionate parent." This praise seems to have been thor- oughly well deserved, and even American writers acknowledge that his official record was not only an able but a clean one. He was possessed of more than ordinary talent, was a warm friend of such men as Addison, St. John, Steele, Shaftsbury, and especially of Dean Swift, who appears to have entertained for him as undoubted sentiments of respect and friend- ship as he entertained for any man. "Hunter," wrote George Foster in his uncompleted life of the Dean of St. Patrick's, "was among the most scholarly and entertaining of his (Swift's) correspondents ; some of Swift's own best letters were written to his friend, and the judgment he had formed of him may be taken from the fact that when all the world were giving to himself the authorship of Shaftsbury's ( anonymously printed) 'Letter of Enthusiasm,' Swift believed Hunter to have written it." Gen- eral Hunter died at Jamaica in 1734, while holding the office of Governor of that island.
Governor Hunter's successor in New York was also a Scotchman- William Burnet. This amiable man was the son of the famous Bishop Burnet, whose "History of Our Own Times" is one of the classics of English literature. William Burnet was educated at Cambridge and ad- mitted to the practice of law. He appears to have been fairly successful in that profession, but lost all his means in the South Sea bubble, and, finding himself ruined, looked around so that he might use his great fam- ily influence to secure for him a colonial appointment, a most natural and common proceeding at that time. His success was quick and brilliant, and in September, 1720, he found himself in New York as its Governor,
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and as Governor of New Jersey. His administration was as able and as honest as that of his predecessor, and he made himself immensely popular by his prohibition of trade between the Indians. and the merchants in Canada, and he even built a fort at his personal expense to help in protect- ing the trade of the colony over which he ruled: The home government, however, refused to endorse Burnet's course in this instance, but that set- back only added to his personal popularity. He lost it all, however, by the policy he adopted toward the Court of Chancery. Briefly stated, hc wanted to make that body independent of public sentiment and- above public interference, while colonial opinion was that all judges and all courts should be subject to the contract of the people, directly or through their elected representatives. Things reached such a pass that the As- sembly threatened to declare all acts and decrees of the Court of Chan- cery as null and void, and reduced all its fees as a preliminary step in that direction. The crisis between the Governor and the people was ended, greatly to the former's relief, in 1728, when he was transferred to the Gov- ernorship of Massachusetts. He had not much time to make a name for himself in the old Bay State, for he died at Boston in 1729.
John Montgomerie, the next Governor, was a soldier of brilliant parts and many amiable qualities, but he only held the office for some three months, dying July 1, 1731. William Cosby, the last of the dual gov- ernors of New York and New Jersey, arrived on August 1, 1732. This miserable charlatan drew his salary, quarreled with Assemblies, courts and all in any position of authority, aired his self-conceit, and gabbled about prerogatives until he became the most hated man in the province. He died in office, March 7, 1736.
Cosby was succeeded by John Hamilton, the son of Governor "An- drew Hamilton, who as, in turn, President of the Council, assumed the executive authority. Hamilton continued to act as Governor until the sum- mer of 1738, when Lewis Morris became Governor of the Province of New Jersey, he having been one of the leaders in the movement which dissolved the political tie which had for over thirty years bound the two provinces. Morris was the foremost lawyer of his time, was Chief Justice of New Jersey for several years, and a fearless and public- spirited citizen. He was bitterly opposed to the rule of Lord Cornbury, and presented in person to Queen Anne the petition asking for the removal of that scoun- drel. He continued to act as Governor of New Jersey, rendering the Prov- ince many rare services until his death.
Jonathan Belcher succeeded to the high office in the following year. He had previously been Governor of Massachusetts, but was removed in consequence of the culmination of one incident in the perpetual
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trouble between the local legislature and the royal governors which for years was the leading feature of colonial official annals. He seems to have been fairly successful in New Jersey, and maintained his authority peace- fully and with much personal popularity until his death at Elizabeth Town, August 31, 1757.
His successor, Sir Francis Bernard, by a curious coincidence, was Governor of New Jersey from 1758 to 1760, and then received the ap- pointment of Governor of Massachusetts, where he is credited with hav- ing by his offensive acts done more to force the Revolution than any other man. Thomas Boone, his successor in New Jersey, only held the office for about a year, and was then transferred to South Carolina. ' Josiah Hardy, who followed Boone, held the office of Governor of New Jersey for two years (1761-63) and was removed because, in contravention of his instructions, he issued commissions to judges under tenure of good behavior instead of during the royal pleasure. After him came Franklin, whose story is fully dwelt upon in another and more stirring chapter of this work, and who was the last of the Governors chosen by the will of a King or a cabinet. When he was ignominiously thrust from the scene, the Governor of New Jersey received his appointment at the hands of the Sovereign People.
CHAPTER VII.
NEW JERSEY IN THE REVOLUTION.
Outside of that of the Commander-in-Chief, the revered Father of his Country, there is no personality so profitable as the theme of a character sketch among all the men brought into prominence during the period of the American Revolution than that of William Franklin, the last of the Royal Governors of New Jersey. We say this not because he was a man of genius, of great force of character, of profound learning or the pos- sessor of any of those qualities which marked out Washington, Greene, Mercer, Hamilton, Livingston, Maxwell, Putnam and Knox as undoubted leaders of men, nor because he possessed a title of that common sense and homely honest wisdom, that sturdy self-reliance, that untiring industry, that keen perception, that creative power, that natural inspiration, which won temporary fame for his father, and have made the name of Benjamin Franklin regarded throughout the world as that of the most typical of all Americans-typical of its diplomacy, its literature, its science, its con)- mercialism and its thoroughly practical ways of meeting all difficulties and surmounting all obstacles in individual or national life.
But it is much easier to say what William Franklin was not, than to describe what he was. Of course, he owed his start in life to the in- fluence of his father, and there seems no doubt that he received his most memorable appointment, that of Governor of New Jersey, in 1763, as a means of retaining the sympathies and support of that father in the measures then being framed for taxing the American Colonies according to the wishes of Parliament, and without regard to the views of the people most concerned. In this. if such was the motive, the British authorities most signally: erred as they erred in matters of much more startling importance. Their courte- ous but political course exhibited in this personal matter never caused Benjamin Franklin to waver from the appointed line of duty, the line so clearly marked out by patriotism and the voice of his country. But it developed William Franklin into a most rabid Tory, and estranged father
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and son, an estrangement that continued unsoftened until long after the contest was over and the son was an exile from his native land.
As Governor of New Jersey, William Franklin failed to exhibit any of the qualities of statesman; he never seemed to estimate correctly the strength of the current with which he was struggling, he did not appear to understand the sentiment of the people over whose destinies he pre- sided or to appreciate the trend of the popular movement which he even vainly tried with puny efforts, it seems to us, to suppress. He was not himself a man of his word, and he judged others by his own calibre. A man of personal honesty, of warm friendship, of high ambitions, he lacked stability of character, that degree of resolution which makes a man respected by his public opponents, respected even when clearly in the wrong, when pursuing an unpopular policy. He was for a time regarded as a somewhat brilliant ruler, yet when the end came and he was ignomin- iously sent to Connecticut-because his word could not be trusted-there was probably not one man in New Jersey who in his heart felt any senti- ment of regret.
William Franklin was born in Philadelphia in 1729, and was an illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin, who appears to have had his weak- nesses like less gifted men. When the child was about a year old, his father, who had married and set up a home, took him there, superintended . his education, and treated him in all respects as a father should treat a son. As he grew up, William developed a taste for reading, and in many ways became the close associate and confidant of his father. He saw a little of life, too, for he obtained a commission in the Pennsylvania Mili- tia, served on the Canadian frontier in the campaigns popularly known as King George's War, and acquitted himself so creditably that he received a commission as captain. For a short time thereafter he was Comptroller of the General Post Office, and Clerk to the Provincial Assembly. In 1757 he accompanied his father to England as his secretary, was admitted a member of the bar in London the following year, and seems to have be- come quite a social favorite. That was the experience which finally cost him his citizenship in his native land. When he landed in England he was in full accord with his father's political views, but as his friendships ex- tended he became noted for his ultra British perversity, and became in fact a Tory of the Tories. It seemed a bit of good politics under all the circumstances to utilize him in America. So Lord Bute thought, when he became acquainted with the young man, and he recommended his em- ployment to Lord Fairfax, with the result that in 1762 William Frank- lin was gazetted as Governor of New Jersey.
He reached his post in the following year. His reception, however,
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was by no means a hearty one, and it was not long before it was evident that his appointment did not realize its expectations. He aped all the possible dignity of a real royal Governor, but the cloud on his birth was mercilessly and openly discussed, and he was publicly branded as a place-hunter and a time-server because he had left the Colonies a Whig and returned a Tory with, it was alleged, the Governorship as the medium of exchange. How- ever that may be, there was henceforth no paltering or equivocation in his political views from the time he took up the reins of government in New Jersey. He was then a Tory and devoted to the cause of King George. He was steadfast in his loyalty all through the Revolution, and after it was over he went to England, where his loyalty won him an appropria- tion and pension, and there he lived until the end of his long journey, in 1813. He had become estranged from his father when the time came for the parting of the ways, and the estrangment was never wholly healed, al- though when the conflict was over a truce was patched up, and their friend- ly relations, to a certain extent, resumed. But from that time their lives were widely apart.
Such was the man into whose hands was delivered the executive power of the Colony at the very time when events were shaping themselves to develop the greatest crisis in its history-the crisis upon which it entered as a Crown Colony, and out of which it emerged as a free and independent sovereign State. That crisis, however, was not fully perceived in 1763 on either side of the Atlantic. There was no trouble apparently in the Colonies beyond the usual and constant struggle of the popular assem- blies with the royal representatives, but that trouble, men said, was chronic ; it had existed from the beginning of the system and would continue to the end. Boston had in 1760 its first tussle with the mother country. New York had led the way in opposing the appointment of judicial offi- cers during "the King's pleasure," but the gravity of such occurrences was hardly estimated, and their effect seemed temporary. The French war, which had carried off so many of the bravest spirits in the Colonies, was just over and a treaty of peace had been signed, and with the news of that consummation came the hope that the frontier of the settlements would henceforth be safe, and that the colonists might press forward into the apparently boundless territory which stretched away beyond, with no opposition except that of the red man. But long before the year 1763 was out, came that terrible native outbreak under Pontiac which ravaged the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, and laid waste the entire northwestern frontier with a thoroughness and barbarity more terrible than had ever before been experienced. The story of that war, as told by Parkman, forms one of the most thrilling episodes in
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