the French. This plan of Dr. Franklin's has been much talked of, as "the Albany Plan of Union," figures largely in all our histories, and is thought to have been one of those grand and original conceptions for which he was so famous. And yet, it was little more than a transcript of the design sketched by Daniel Coxe many years before, and which would seem to have originated with him. To him, therefore, a citizen of New Jersey, and one of the Judges of our Supreme Court, belongs the credit of it, and the truth of history requires that from him it should no longer be withheld. The name of Franklin is encircled with such a glorious plumage of its own, that it can well afford to have this single borrowed feather plucked from it.

Daniel Coxe remained upon the Bench of the Supreme Court until his death, which took place at Trenton in the spring of 1739. His early career in New Jersey was clouded, by his connexion with Lord Cornbury, and his differences with Governor Hunter; but he lived to enjoy the confidence and respect of the community; and his judicial duties appear to have been discharged with ability and integrity.

'The next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was Robert Hunter Morris. His commission bears date on the seventeenth of March, 1738, and a few

days afterwards he took his seat upon the Bench. He was the son of Lewis Morris, of whom we have had occasion more than once to speak, a man who for more than half a century filled a most conspicuous place in the annals both of New Jersey and New York.

Having the misfortune when an infant to lose both his parents, Lewis Morris was adopted by an uncle, who took care of him until he came to man's estate. His early years were wild and erratic. In one of his youthful freaks, he strolled away to Virginia, and from there to the Island of Jamaica, "where, to support himself, he set up for a scrivener." After some years spent in this "vagabond life," he returned to his uncle, by whom he was kindly received, and who, dying soon after, left him heir to his fortune.' He began his public career in New Jersey, where he became a Judge of the Court of Common Right under the Proprietary Government, and after the Surrender, a member of the Council, and a popular leader of the Assembly. Upon receiving the appointment of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, he removed to that Province, and for many years took a leading part in its affairs; and now, after a long

1 Smith's N. Y., 202.

absence, he returned to New Jersey, not to spend in quietness and peace the remnant of a life which was drawing to a close, but to enter upon a new and troubled scene of action. He brought with him a commission as Governor of New Jersey alone, this Province being now, for the first time since the Surrender, allowed to have a separate Governor from New York.

But it is impossible for me, within the limits which I have prescribed to myself, to do justice to the character of either the Governor or the Chief Justice. Ample materials exist for a life of both father and son, and it is to be hoped that they will ere long be collected, and embodied in some suitable form. Interesting and valuable would their biographies be. Their history would in fact be the history of New Jersey for the first century of its existence. Lewis Morris, in his youth, must have been the companion of the first settlers of the Colony, and Robert Hunter Morris, in his old age, of the chief actors in the Revolution. Lewis Morris was one of the earliest Judges of the Court of Common Right, and Robert Hunter Morris one of the latest Chief Justices of the Supreme Colonial Court. Their career, too, was so chequered, and their features so strongly marked, that they present a most tempting theme for discussion. But it is

one in which I cannot now indulge. I can only glance at a few of the more striking incidents of their life, and the more prominent traits of their character.

Lewis Morris, notwithstanding his eccentricities, was a man of strong natural parts, which were much improved by commerce with the world, and the society of men of sense and knowledge, of which he was passionately fond. But he was at the same time a man of strong passions, which were not always under his control, and of an ardent, restless, and aspiring disposition. In his youth he was a flaming patriot, and stood up manfully for the rights of the people; but when in power himself, no one was a fiercer stickler for prerogative. He was indolent in the management of his private affairs, but always busy about public matters. He had considerable knowledge of the law, but was much more deeply versed in the arts of intrigue. In short, he was neither a profound lawyer, nor an enlightend statesman, but a mere politician, and his vices were the vices which belong to that class of men. But he was not deficient in generous or manly qualities, nor incapable of appreciating them in others. An inordinate love of money was not one of his faults. The fortune which he left behind him, he had inherited from his

uncle. He was a kind husband, and an affectionate parent.1

He was nearly seventy years old, when he was appointed Governor of New Jersey; but age had not impaired the vigor of his faculties, nor cooled the ardor of his passions, nor extinguished his fondness for disputation. He was received by the people and the Assembly with open arms. They remembered, with gratitude, the services which in times past he had rendered to the Colony, and the boldness and eloquence with which he had vindicated their rights, against the tyrannical encroachments of Cornbury. The first messages which passed between him and the House, breathed nothing but mutual congratulation and confidence. They expressed their deep sensibility of their sovereign's paternal care over them, in giving them a Governor so exactly adapted to their wants and circumstances; a person so distinguished for his profound knowledge of the law, and so eminent for his skill in the affairs of government; one, in short, who from his learning and ability, and from his acquaintance with the nature and Constitution of the Province, was every way qualified to render them a happy and flourishing people. But the

1 Smith's N. J., p. 428.