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Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey (1881)
Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey - 1881 Author:New Jersey Historical Society Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Letter from Lord Cornbury to the Lords of Trade, about New Jersey Affairs. I From P. R. O. B. T. New Jersey, Vol. 1, B. l.] I/ from the Ld Cornbury to the ... more »Board Dated at New York 14? January 170? My Lords Hoping that this may still reach her Maiestys Ship Centurion before she sails from Boston, I take the liberty hereby to acquaint your Lordshipps with what has passed in New Jersey, at the meeting of the Generall Assembly of that Province, which according to her Maiestys commands, in her Instructions to me, met for the first time at Perth Amboy in the Eastern Division of New Jersey, and here I must first observe with humble submission, that the quallification prescribed in the 15th clause of my instructions, for the persons who are to Elect, and be Elected, will not be advantagious for that Province, and I am perswaded the persons that proposed that regulation, did not intend the good of the Country; the effects that have attended that way of Electing, (for I did take care that the Queen's commands should be obeyed) are these, first severall persons very well qualified to serve, could not be elected, because they had not a thousand acres of Land, though at the same time, they had twice the vallue of that Land, in money and goods, they being trading men, on the other hand some were chosen because they have a thousand acres of Land, and at the same time have not twenty shillings in money, drive noe trade, and can neither read nor write, nay they can not answer a question that is asked them, of this sort we have two in the Assembly; the next incon- veniency that the people complain of in this way of electing, is; that there being ten members to be chosenfor each Division, it may soe happen that all the ten may be dwellers in one County, and the more likely to be soe, beca...« less