called in question, or in the least punished or hurt, either in person, privilege, or estate, for the sake of his opinion, judgment, faith, or worship, in matters of religion." The " Concessions " of Berkeley and Carte ret were liberal and tolerant, but they were prompted by the desire to secure immigrants for the new colony, and were based upon selfish considerations. For once avarice sur rendered to principle; but the " Concessions" of West Jersey were the honest declarations of pure-minded, liberal-hearted men, who had learned mercy in the terrible fires of perse cution, who desired to benefit their kind, and who determined to found a state upon the eternal principles of justice and truth, of righteousness and freedom. The Court of Chancery never was very popular with the people of New Jersey. They originally submitted to the fact of its existence and to its jurisdiction with a sort of protest. It is probable that in the early history of the colony a court of equity was not needed. In the simple methods of dis pensing justice, the stricter rules of the common law were so tempered with equity that it was not necessary to resort to a court of chancery. Thomas Olive, who was governor of West Jersey, would be called upon by suitors to determine controversies; and sitting on a stump in his field, would settle the dispute on the spot, and generally to the satisfaction of both parties. The dislike of the people to the Court of Chancery was due, probably, to the fact that its procedure dispensed with a jury, and the Saxon element in the settlers revolted against a court which enforced decrees and judg ments pronounced by a single judge. But the institution of equity tribunals was of English origin; and time, after a period of distrust and jealousy, softened the prejudice and dispelled the doubt which was enter tained of this tribunal. It is very difficult to establish a time when the Court of Chancery began its existence as a separate institution. It certainly was in being early in the history of the province,
and before its division into East and West Jersey, — undoubtedly earlier than 1675. In that year the General Assembly enacted a statute providing that appeals from the County Courts might be made to the Bench "or to the Court of Chancery." This phraseology certainly implies that the Bench and the Court of Chancery were two dis tinct tribunals. For a short time after the institution of the Court of Common Right, equity and common law jurisdiction seemed to have been blended, and both con fided to this court. But in 1695 the Legis lature solemnly enacted that the judges of the Court of Common Right should not be judges of the Court of Chancery. However unpopular a court of equity may have been with the people in New Jersey, it was always a delight to lawyers; and the unseemly wran gles between the courts of chancery and those of common law, too often witnessed in England, never occurred in New Jersey. The two jurisdictions kept side by side in perfect harmony, each according to the other its proper place in the jurisprudence of the country. This brief sketch of the Courts of New Jersey exhibits somewhat their condition as they existed at the time of the reunion of the two Provinces of East and West Jersey, and when the sovereignty of both of those provinces was surrendered to the Queen of England. The courts were simple in their formation and in their procedure; there was really very little system and not entire uni formity in the mode of dispensing justice in the different tribunals. Many irregularities crept into the courts, for which no one can now account. Before the surrender justices of the peace were found sitting among the judges of the Supreme Court, and many other incongruities existed in this highest Court in the colony. Toward the close of the seventeenth cen tury the people of both East and West Jer sey became very restive under the then existing methods of government. They ob jected most strenuously to the right of civil
