I would have felt that it was much safer for me to seek for it along those paths which I am accustomed to frequent, rather than to explore fields to me new and untrodden, and where I could hardly hope to find any thing which had eluded the researches of those who had gone before.

But however little there may be in the subject of my discourse to interest the feelings or excite the fancy, let me not be understood as meaning in the slightest degree to undervalue its importance. On the contrary, I am persuaded, there is no portion of the history of our State-rich as it is in the materials both for pleasant and profitable meditation-in the study of which we can be more usefully employed, or in the contemplation of which we can feel a more honest pride, than in that which pertains to the administration of justice. The story of our battle-fields, the recital of the martial deeds of our ancestors, may be more stirring; but the feelings which such scenes awaken are transient, and their influence has long since ceased to be felt. Whereas, to trace to their source the growth of laws and institutions under which we now live; to look at the foundations upon which have been raised temples of justice still standing; and to gather up what remains of the life and character of those who have ministered at their altars, if it has

less to excite, will yet be found to possess a present and an enduring interest. In truth, the great end for which all government is instituted, is neither more nor less than the administration of Justice. It is for this, that men consent to forego the exercise of their natural rights, and to submit to those restraints which society imposes. "He," says Lord Brougham in his celebrated speech on law reform, "He was guilty of no error-he was chargeable with no exaggeration-he was betrayed by his fancy into no metaphor, who once said, that all we see about us, King, Lords, and Commons, the whole machinery of the State, all the apparatus of the system, and its varied workings, end in simply bringing twelve good men into a box." And if this

Delivered in the House of Commons February 7, 1828. Lord Brougham's Speeches, II. 324. An American lawyer cannot read this admirable speech without being led to remark, that most of the improvements which are suggested in the state of the law, and the method of procedure in Courts of Justice, had already been adopted in this country, and were then in successful operation. And yet, while there are allusions to the laws of so many other countries scattered throughout the speech, there is not the slightest reference to the United States.

2 The same idea is expressed by Hume in his Essay on the Origin of

Government. "We are therefore to look upon all the vast apparatus of our government as having ultimately no other object or purpose but the distribution of justice, or in other words, the support of the twelve judges. Kings and parliaments, fleets and armies, officers of the court and revenue, ambassadors, ministers, and privy-counselors, are all subordinate in their end to this part of administration. Even the clergy, as their duty leads them to inculcate morality, may justly be thought, so far as regards this world, to have no other useful object of their institution."-Hume's Essays, I. 63.

be true in any sense in other countries, it must be emphatically so here, where we may, in a peculiar manner, be said to live under the government of law.

The history of New Jersey naturally divides itself into three periods; from the first settlement by the English to the surrender of the government to the crown; from the surrender to the Revolution; and from the Revolution to the present time. Or, in other words, New Jersey is to be viewed under a proprietary government, as a Colony, and as a State. It is to the period which preceded the surrender, and when East and West Jersey were under distinct proprietary governments, that we are first to direct our attention.

The establishment of Courts of Justice is almost coeval with the first settlement of the State. While in the more populous and important Province of New York, we find Governor Nichols, during the whole of his administration, deciding alone, and in a most summary way, all controversies that arose; in East Jersey, on the other hand, consist

"He created," says the Historian of New York, "no courts of justice, but took upon himself the sole decision of all controversies whatsoever. Complaints came before him by petition, upon which he gave a day to the

parties, and after a summary hearing, pronounced judgment. His determinations were called edicts, and executed by the sheriffs he had appointed."--Smith's New York, 55.

ing though it did of a few feeble and scattered settlements, whose only security against the inroads of the savage was in the respect with which his right to the soil was always treated,' we find the most ample provision made for the distribution of justice between man and man, through the instrumentality of Courts, and by the intervention of a jury. By the concessions of Berkley and Carteret, the original proprietors of New Jersey, the power of erecting Courts and of defining their jurisdiction, was conferred upon the General Assembly. This body convened, for the first time in the history of New

'It must be a source of no ordinary gratification to Jerseymen to reflect, that the soil of their State has never been stained with the blood of the Indian, nor an acre of her territory obtained by violence or fraud. Well has she merited the distinguished honor paid to her by the Six Nations at a Convention held at Fort Stanwix in 1769, when in the most solemn manner they conferred upon New Jersey the title of the Great Doer of Justice.

When the Legislature was applied to in 1832, by a remnant of the Delaware tribe, to purchase certain rights of fishing and hunting which had been reserved to them by an ancient treaty, Mr. Southard, in advocating the claim, truly observed, "That it was a proud fact in the history of New Jersey, that every foot of her soil had been obtained from the Indians by fair and

voluntary purchase and transfer-a fact, that no other State of the Union, not even the land that bears the name of Penn, can boast of." And in returning thanks to the Legislature for its liberality upon that occasion, an aged Indian, who represented the Delawares, thus spoke: "Not a drop of our blood have you spilled in battle-not an acre of our land have you taken but by our consent. These facts speak for themselves, and need no comment. They place the character of New Jersey in bold relief and bright example to those States, within whose territorial limits our brethren still remain. Nothing save benizens can fall upon her, from the lips of a Lenni Lenappi." Well may we exclaim on behalf of New Jersey, "The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me."

Jersey, in 1668, in Elizabethtown, fifteen years, by the way, in advance of any similar Assembly in the Province of New York. It held, however, only two Sessions of four days each, and passed but few laws; and such was the unsettled state of the Province, that seven years elapsed before another Assembly met.' So that it was not until 1675, that we are to look for the first establishment of Courts of Justice in New Jersey by legislative enactment. Prior to this, however, and as early as 1668, we find Courts existing both at Bergen and Woodbridge; and it was to these tribunals that Governor Carteret appealed, and their protection which he invoked, during the troubles which followed that memorable day, when Quit Rents first became due. But these were mere local or municipal Courts, erected by the Corporations of those towns, in virtue of the authority granted them by their charters. Governor Carteret, indeed, sought to extend their jurisdiction and to strengthen their arm, by author

1 Whitehead's East Jersey, 52, 53. 2 Courts of Justice were also instituted in Monmouth as early as 1667, under the patent granted by Colonel Nichols, "Governor under his royal highness the Duke of York of all his territories in America." These Courts held their sessions first at Portland Point, and afterwards alternately at

Shrewsbury and Middletown. But the twelve Patentees of Navesink were not long permitted by the Lords Proprietors, to exercise the powers thus conferred upon them by his royal highness's governor; and the Courts thus erected soon ceased to exist.-Proceedings of N. J. Hist. Soc., vol. i. p. 167.