And now this oppressed and persecuted people were about to have a land of refuge in the wilderness. In March, 1674, shortly after George Fox’s return to England after that visit to his friends in America of which we have spoken, and perhaps at his suggestion, Lord Berkeley sold his share of New Jersey to Fenwick and Byllinge; and the following year, Fenwick, with a large number of Friends’ families, set sail in the Griffith, and ascending the Delaware, landed at a place which he called Salem, for it indeed seemed the “dwelling-place of peace.” Byllinge having become embarrassed in his circumstances, assigned his share of the province to William Penn and two others, still Quakers, and their earliest care was to obtain a division of the territory between themselves and Sir George Carteret, so that they might be able to carry out their own views of independent government. New Jersey was therefore divided, Carteret receiving the eastern portion, which was called East New Jersey, and Fenwick and his friends the western, or West New Jersey. The Quakers, like the pilgrim fathers of the Mayflower, prepared the fundamental law of the colony even before they took possession, so that from the first they were under the guidance of an enlightened legislation. The quaker proprietaries, in their “Concessions,” “laid a foundation,” to use their own words, “for after ages to understand their liberty as Christians and as men, that they may not be brought into bondage but by their own consent; for we put the power in the people.” The fundamental laws of New West Jersey were published in March, 1677, and afford a striking contrast to “the Grand Model” of Carolina. They insured entire freedom of conscience, enacting that no person, at any time or in any way, should be called in question or suffer damage or detriment on account of religious opinion. Government was to be administered by a general assembly elected by ballot; every citizen being capable either of electing or being elected. Every member of the assembly was to be paid one shilling a day by his constituents, “that he may be known as the servant of the people.” The executive power was vested in the commissioners appointed by the assembly, and the people themselves chose justices and constables; the judges were to be appointed by the assembly. Trial by jury was established; and, that “all and every person in the province, by the help of the Lord and these fundamentals, may be free from oppression and slavery, it was enacted, that no man could be imprisoned for debt; courts were to be managed without attorneys or counsellors; the native was to be protected by the laws; and the orphan to be educated by the state.”