CrVIL GOVERNMENT. 25 



tive of the Duke and of the Crown. Perhaps no successor strove to 

 lighten the task imposed by a mercenary master upon his subjects with 

 greater zeal or more generous humanity. Under James there could be 

 no popular government. His largest inheritance was stubborn resistance 

 to popular rights. Exile taught him no lesson, and experience as a 

 Ruler, no wisdom. 



The period of eighteen years from the establishment of the Colonial 

 power of England over our County, and the establishment of the County, 

 is marked by the exercise of despotism and the violation of faith. Love- 

 lace, succeeding Nicolls, bore with him instructions to make no altera- 

 tions in the laws of the government settled before his arrival. He was of 

 a ''generous mind and noble," and there are not wanting instances of the 

 exercise upon his part of an enlightened understanding of popular needs. 

 His letter to a minister will stand as an example of excellent intent to in- 

 troduce liberality in the Church. Upon the other hand he reflected the 

 policy of the colonial Governors in his letter to Sir Robert Carr, Governor 

 of New Jersey, advising that the best method to keep the people in order 

 was, "to lay such taxes on them as may not give them liberty to enter- 

 tain any other thoughts, but how to discharge them. " We have seen that 

 the Court of Assize sitting in New York combined the powers of the Ju- 

 diciary and Legislature. The mischief sure to develop from committing 

 to Judges the power to legislate is so obvious that argument will not in- 

 crease the force of the proposition. If added to this anomalous lodg- 

 ment of power, the Judges are appointees of the Governor and removable 

 at his will, you find a form of government in which liberalit}' is the merest 

 pretence, and tyranny the sure [)rinciple. The Duke's Laws were endur- 

 able in all that pertained to personal rights and obligations, and were 

 broad in their favor of the institutions of Religion and the local Church 

 establishments. While the structure of these laws and their tendency 

 were illv adapted to the improvement of a community, yet they could be 

 tolerated and the growth of society not seriously retarded by their opera- 

 tion. But in stripping the people of their power to choose their leaders 

 and to participate in general legislation, and particularly in all questions 

 of taxation, the government instituted by Col. Nicolls gave birth to a 

 spirit of discontent and revolt that no force in its possession could allay 

 or quell. Lovelace's policy in this behalf, to stifle complaint by taxation 

 so heavy that the citizen could think of nothing but how to pay, was the 

 reproduction of the oppressive system encouraged in the Palace of White- 

 hall, but sure of defeat when aimed at a hasty, zealous, resolute people 

 who for more than a quarter of a century had bowed the knee to no maS" 

 ter save the Almighty. The administration of justice in localities was ac- 

 ceptable when the cases submitted concerned such trifling interests as 

 afforded jurisdiction to the elective courts. 'As the determination to re- 

 sist a rule that allowed no popular voice became settled, the inevitable 

 consequence was developed. The citizen refused to pay taxes under the 

 resolution adopted by a general meeting of his Town, ministers joined in 

 denunciation of the authorities, arrests, fines and imprisonments upon the 

 part of the Colonial Government were sweet morsels to a body of Puritans 

 who hailed martyrdom as an assured election, and who wielded the Sword 

 with the devout conviction that it was an instrument of biblical invention, 

 and with the skill that years of steady use had imparted. These heated 

 disturbances arrested productive labor, and impoverishment set in where 



