Two emigrating quaker-companies were commenced in England, one in London, the other in Yorkshire. Thomas Olive and others went out as commissioners to superintend the colony till a permanent government was established; and in 1677 about 400 colonists went out, and purchasing land from the Indians, established themselves at Burlington, on the Delaware—these being, probably, Yorkshire Friends—and a tent covered with sail-cloth furnished them with a place for their religious worship. The Indians, those peaceful Delawares, received them as friends, and rejoiced in the prospect of dwelling in perpetual amity with them. “You are our brethren,” said the sachems, “and we will live like brothers with you. We will have a broad path for you and us to walk in. If an Englishman shall fall asleep in this path, the Indian shall pass him by, and say, he is an Englishman; he is asleep, let him alone. The path shall be plain; there shall not be in it a stump to hurt the foot.” All went well with the colony, when a difficulty arose between them and Andros, the agent of the Duke of York, who still possessed Delaware, and who demanded customs of all the ships which ascended that river to New Jersey. The Quakers refused to pay them; and the duke, to whom they made their remonstrance, agreed to refer the question to Sir William Jones, an eminent lawyer of that day. We must give a few clauses from their remonstrance, to show the straightforward and manly spirit of the quaker colonists:— “An express grant of the powers of government,” say they, “induced us to buy the moiety of New Jersey. If we could not assure people of an easy, free and safe government, liberty of conscience and an inviolable possession of their civil rights and freedoms, a mere wilderness would be no encouragement. It were madness to leave a free country to plant a wilderness, and give another person an absolute title to tax us at will. “The customs imposed by the government of New York are not only a burden but a wrong. The King of England cannot take his subjects’ goods without their consent. This is a home-born right, declared to be law by divers statutes. “The land belongs to the natives; of the duke we buy nothing but the right of an undisturbed colonisation, with the expectation of some increase of the freedoms of our native country. We have not lost English liberty by leaving England. “The tax is a surprise to the planter; it is paying for the same thing twice over. By this precedent we are assessed without law, and excluded from our English right of common assent to taxes. Such conduct has destroyed government, but never raised one to true greatness. “Lastly, to exact such interminable tax, and to continue it after repeated complaints, will be the greatest evidence of a design to introduce, if the crown should ever devolve upon the duke, an unlimited power in England.”