quarter; eggs at three pence a dozen; all things very plenty; land very good as ever I saw; vines, walnuts, peaches, strawberries, and many other things plenty in the woods."

By the "Concessions and Agreement of the Lords Proprietors," a General Assembly was established, consisting of the Governor, a Council, and a House of Burgesses. This Assembly held it first meeting at Elizabeth-Town, on the 26th of May, 1668. The Council consisted of seven, and the House of Burgesses of eleven members. John Ogden, sen'r, and John Bracket, were the members from ElizabethTown. It is very easily inferred that a New-England influence was predominant in this first colonial legisIBLIC LI lature, as we find Mel Teatres he Puritan codes transferred the statute book of New-Jersey. After sitting four days, and passing 24, 1880dry laws, they adjourned to the third of November when the Burgesses were increased by the addition of some delegates from the river Delaware. They sit but a few days; and from the letters which pass between the Governor and Council on the one hand, and the Burgesses on the other, we conclude that it was dissolved amid no little excitement.

R

The inquiry naturally arises, what was the character and purport of the laws passed by this first colonial legislature? The very first act respects the punishment of disobedience to lawful authority; and the second, the defence of the rising Commonwealth, by enacting that all males from sixteen to sixty should

be provided with fire-arms. The next are called "Capital Acts," in which severe punishments are enacted against arson, murder, perjury, buggery, sodomy, burglary, stealing, conspiracy, undutiful children, rapes, night-walking, and drinking "in tapphouses after nine of the clock at night." It was also solemnly enacted, that "if any person be found to be a witch, either male or female, they shall be put to death." It was also enacted, that "no son, daughter, maid or servant, without consent of parents, guardians or overseers, should marry; nor then, without being three times published in some public meeting or kirk near the party's abode, or notice being set up in writing at some public house near where they lived, for fourteen days before."

Although in May, 1668, it was enacted that "the General Assembly are to meet on the first Tuesday in November next, and so to continue their meeting yearly on the same day until they shall see cause to alter the said time of meeting," we find no record of its meeting from November, 1668, to November, 1675. It probably did not meet during the intervening years, owing to the great excitement and controversy between the Associates and Proprietors, and the confusion caused by the Constituent Assembly of 1672, which displaced Governor Carteret. In 1674 he returns from England with new instructions from the Proprietors; and the third session of the Legislature commences in 1675, of which Henry Lyon and Benjamin Price were the Burgesses from Elizabeth-Town,

And, with few exceptions, the General Assembly held its annual sessions in this town during the subsequent seven years. Up to 1682 the sessions of the Supreme Court were held here. Here were all the public buildings. There is not now a trace of these public buildings in existence; nor does even tradition point out the site on which they stood. In 1686 the Assembly met at "Amboy Perth." We know not that it ever afterwards met regularly at this place. It alternated between Amboy and Burlington, occasionally meeting here, until it became stationary at "Trentown."

In 1693, the Assembly resolved "That the township of Elizabeth-Town shall include all the land from the mouth of Rahway River West to Woodbridge stake, and from thence Westerly along the line of the county to the partition line of the Province; and from the mouth of said Rahway River, up the Sound to the mouth of Bound Creek, and from thence to the Bound Hill, from thence Northwest to the partition line of the Province."* Within these lines, if we rightly understand them, were included Baskenridge, Pluckamin, and a part of Lamington, now lying in Somerset county.

On the 8th day of February, 1739, Lewis Morris being Captain-General, Governor and Commander-inChief of the Province, and in the thirteenth year of George II., the Borough of Elizabeth received the following act of incorporation :

Leaming and Spicer, p. 329.

"GEORGE the Second, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland King, Defen

der of the Faith, &c.: To all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting :—

"Whereas our loving subjects, Joseph Bonnel, Andrew Joline, Thomas Price, John Ross, John Blanchard, John Crane, Thomas Clark, Matthias Hetfield, Noadiah Potter, John Halsted, Nathaniel Bonnel, Samuel Woodruff, Samuel Marsh, Jonathan Hampton, William Chetwood, Edward Thomas, Cornelius Hetfield, and many other inhabitants and freeholders in Elizabeth-Town, in our County of Essex, in our Province of Nova-Cæsarea or New-Jersey, have lately by their humble petition presented to our trusty and well-beloved Lewis Morris, Esquire, Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of our said Province of NewJersey, in America; in behalf of themselves and others the freeholders and inhabitants of the said town have humbly pray'd for our Royal Grant by letters patent under our great seal of our said Province of Nova-Cæsarea or New-Jersey, to incorporate them into a body corporate and politic, with perpetual succession, by whatsoever name our said Governor and Commander-in-Chief shall think fit; and that all and singular the lands and tenements within the said town may for ever be within the limits of the said free town and borough corporate, and for such immunities and privileges as may be necessary for the well ordering and ruling thereof: We being willing to grant the reasonable requests and prayers of all our loving sub

jects, and to promote good order among them: Know ye therefore that we, considering the premises, and being willing for the future that a firm, certain and peaceable government may be established within the said town of Elizabeth-Town, do of our especial grace, certain knowledge and mere motion, by these presents will, ordain, grant and constitute, that the aforesaid town of Elizabeth-Town, from henceforth for ever may and shall be, and is hereby, made and constituted and ordained, to be a Free Town and Borough of itself; and that all the houses and buildings, lands, waters, water-courses, ponds, pools, rivers, brooks, meadows, marshes, soyle, lands and grounds, situate, lying and being in the county of Essex and province aforesaid, Beginning at the mouth of Rahway River where it falls into the Sound, thence running to the mouth of Robison's Branch, thence West twelve miles, thence Northerly on a direct line to the mouth of Dead River where it empty's itself into Passaick River, thence down the Passaick River to where Minisink Path crosseth the same, thence on a direct line to the bluff end of the mountain called the North Mountain, from thence along the foot of the said mountain to the division line between Newark and Elizabeth-Town aforesaid, thence as that line runs to Dividen Hill, thence to the head of the creek called Bound Creek, thence down the said creek to Arthur Cull Bay, thence down the said bay to the sound which parts Staten Island from ElizabethTown, and thence down the sound to where it begun,