NEW JERSEY PASSES INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENGLISH.--POLITICAL POWERS CONVEYED TO BERKELEY AND CARTERET.--LEGISLATION ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.--THE COLONY DIVIDED INTO EAST AND WEST JERSEY--SEPARATE GOVERNMENTS.--AN ACT CONCERNING SLAVERY BY THE LEGISLATURE OF EAST JERSEY.--GENERAL APPREHENSION RESPECTING THE RISING OF NEGRO AND INDIAN SLAVES.--EAST AND WEST JERSEY SURRENDER THEIR RIGHTS OF GOVERNMENT TO THE QUEEN.--AN ACT FOR REGULATING THE CONDUCT OF SLAVES.--IMPOST-TAX OF TEN POUNDS LEVIED UPON EACH NEGRO IMPORTED INTO THE COLONY.--THE GENERAL COURT PASSES A LAW RECREATING THE TRIAL OF SLAVES.--NEGROES RULED OUT OF THE MILITIA ESTABLISHMENT UPON CONDITION.--POPULATION OF THE JERSEYS IN 1738 AND 1745. The colony of New Jersey passed into the control of the English in 1664; and the first grant of political powers, upon which the government was erected, was conveyed by the Duke of York to Berkeley and Carteret during the same year. In the "Proprietary Articles of Concession," the words _servants, slaves, and Christian servants_ occur. It was the intention of the colonists to draw a distinction between "_servants for a term of years_," and "_servants for life_," between white servants and black slaves, between Christians and pagans. When slavery was introduced into Jersey is not known.[475] There is no doubt but that it made its appearance there almost as early as in New Netherlands. The Dutch, the Quakers, and the English held slaves. But the system was milder here than in any of the other colonies. The Negroes were scattered among the families of the whites, and were treated with great humanity. Legislation on the subject of slavery did not begin until the middle of the eighteenth century, and it was not severe. Before this time, say three-quarters of a century, a few Acts had been passed calculated to protect the slave element from the sin of intoxication. In 1675 an Act passed, imposing fines and punishments upon any white person who should transport, harbor, or entertain "apprentices, servants, or slaves." It was perfectly natural that the Negroes should be of a nomadic disposition. They had no homes, no wives, no children,--nothing to attach them to a locality. Those who resided near the seacoast watched, with unflagging interest, the coming and going of the mysterious white-winged vessels. They hung upon the storied lips of every fugitive, and dreamed of lands afar where they might find that liberty for which their souls thirsted as the hart for the water-brook. Far from their native country, without the blessings of the Church, or the warmth of substantial friendship, they fell into a listless condition, a somnolence that led them to stagger against some of the regulations of the Province. Their wandering was not inspired by any subjective, inherent, generic evil: it was but the tossing of a weary, distressed mind under the dreadful