Part of the Delaware country was sold by the Dutch West India Company to the city of Amsterdam (1656). The officers sent out by the municipality were as a rule inefficient, and the colony declined; bad crops, famine, disease, Indian troubles, quarrels with New Netherland, and boundary difficulties with the English in Maryland, being additional reasons for retrogression. Sidenote: English rule established. The city had just acquired the whole of the Delaware River region, when the English took possession (1664), and Amsterdam rule was succeeded by that of the Duke of York, with laws similar to those in vogue elsewhere in his province. There were a few outbreaks, but as a rule both Dutch and Swedes prospered under English domination. Sidenote: Annexed to Pennsylvania. The district was for some time the object of contention by rival English claimants. Maryland and New Jersey both wanted it, but Penn finally secured a grant of the country (1682), to give his province of Pennsylvania an outlet to the sea. Delaware, now known as "the territories," "lower counties," or "Delaware hundreds" of Pennsylvania, was for many years the source of much anxiety to its Quaker proprietor, for political jealousy of the "province," or Pennsylvania proper, gave rise to much popular discontent. In 1691 the "territories" were granted a separate assembly and a deputy-governor. But the "territories" and the "province" were reunited under Fletcher's temporary rule (1693), and so remained until 1703, when Delaware was recognized as a separate colony, with an assembly of its own, although under the same governorship as Pennsylvania. Sidenote: Characteristics of Delaware. The separate existence of Delaware was almost an accident. The colony was unjustly cut out of the Maryland grant, and was little more than a strip along Chesapeake Bay. It remained down to the Revolution the smallest and least important of all the colonies. 88. New Jersey (1664-1738). Sidenote: Berkeley and Carteret's grant. We have already noticed the erection of Fort Nassau by the Dutch, and the struggle over the possession of the banks of Delaware River and Bay between the Dutch, the Swedes, and the English. When the Duke of York came into possession of the country (1664), he granted the lands between the Delaware and the Hudson to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, under the name of New Jersey; this title was in compliment to Carteret, who had been governor of the island of Jersey and bravely held it for Charles II. during the Great Rebellion. New Jersey had a hundred and twenty miles of sea-coast; it was as yet sparsely settled; it had a fixed natural boundary on the west; and it was considered a particularly desirable seat for colonization. Sidenote: Liberal plan of government.