George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 3, 15th edition.

[49] conscience was granted to all but Papists, but favor

Chap. XIX.}

was invoked for the Church of England. At the same time, its prosperity was made impossible by investing the governor with the right of presentation to benefices.

In suits at law, the governor and council formed a court of appeal: if the value in dispute exceeded two hundred pounds, the English privy council possessed

1702 April.

ultimate jurisdiction. Two instructions mark, one a declining bigotry, the other an increasing interest. ‘Great inconvenience,’ says Queen Anne, ‘may arise by the liberty of printing in our province’ of New Jersey; and therefore no printing press might be kept, ‘no book, pamphlet, or other matters whatsoever, be printed without a license.’ And, in conformity with English policy, especial countenance of the traffic ‘in merchantable negroes’ was earnestly enjoined. Thus the courts, the press, the executive, became dependent on the crown, and the interests of free labor were sacrificed to the cupidity of the Royal African Company.

One method of influence remained to the people of New Jersey. The assembly must fix the amount of its grants to the governor. The queen did not venture to prescribe, or to invite parliament to prescribe, a salary,—still less, herself to concede it from colonial resources. Urgent that all appropriations should be made directly for the use of the crown, to be audited by her officers, she wished a fixed revenue to be settled; but the colonial deliberations were respected, and the wise assembly, which never established a permanent revenue, often embarrassed its votes of supplies by insisting on an auditor of its own.

The freemen of the colony were soon conscious of