Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1879 — AN AMUSING OLD RECORD. [ARTICLE]

AN AMUSING OLD RECORD.

The State of New Jersey in the Days of Queen Anne. New York Star. A very amusing old record has fallen into our hands, being one of the republications lately made by the State of New Jersey or their, early colonial and provincial journals. Our readers maybe entertained by the following narrative, which we compile from that portion of the journals of the House of Representatives which covers the period immediately succeeding the union of East and West New Jersey into one government. It was in the reign of Queen Anne, Anno 1703, that the proprietors of East and West New Jersey surrendered to the Crown their patents of government, and the two provinces were united into one, under the name of Nova Ceearia, or New Jersey. The Queen appointed Viscount Corn burg Governor of the new province. He was a grandson of the great Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and consequently he was first cousin of the Queen —as precious a scamp as Her Majesty had anywhere in her service. Whether it was from apprehension of his rapacious tendencies, or only from a prudent regard to the poverty of the province, the Queen gave him strict orders, upon pain of er highest displeasure ana of being re-, called from his Government, not to receive any present from the Assembly, or from individuals, on any account, or in &Dy manner; but she directed that the Assembly settle a oonstant and fixed allowance on the Governor and Lieutenant Governor suitable to their respective characters, in regard of her having taken the province under her immediate protection. Cornburg was directed to communicate these orders to the Assembly at its first meeting, and to have them registered with both the Council and the Assembly. He was at the same time Governor of New York, and had his residence in this city for the greater part of the time. He led the poor Jerseyites a most extraordinary rig for five or six years; but they learned in process of time how to give him Bolands for his Olivers, and how to make as much hot water for him as he made lor them. The politics of the little Government are very tunny. They are all dust and ashes now—those turbulent Jerseymea—the last of them naving been gathered to their fathers while their descendants of the Revolutionary period were coming upon the stage. . It is as good and droll as a play to read how nis Excellency’s write went out into the east and west divisions and summoned the four-and-twenty men, twelve from each division, who constituted the little Assembly; how all the forms of the Imperial Parliament were gone through; how the Speaker was ehosen, presented and approved; how the Speaker prayed his Excellency to grant to the House its rights and privileges; how his Excellency was attended by the House and made to them a “favorable speech;” how the Speaker obtained a copy of it, and had it read, and how it was answered.