Proprietors, Patronage, and Paper Money: Legislative Politics in New Jersey, 1703-1776 (review)

128Quaker History mighty acts in every age, especially in our own time. In Fox's view eternity breaks into time apocalyptically at every instant in which the inward light and voice of Jesus Christ is seen, heard and obeyed. No one who has read and studied most of George Fox's collected writings, as I have, can escape being struck by Fox's overwhelming faith in Jesus Christ in his offices as priest, ruler, prophet, servant, peacemaker and living Word of God. Perusal of this book convinces us that the Quaker message is inescapably Christ-centered in a cosmic and transforming sense. This is the major import of Fox and Gwyn's crucial good-news phrase, "Christ is come to teach his people himself." Wilmington CollegeT. Canby Jones Proprietors, Patronage, and Paper Money: Legislative Politics in New Jersey, 1703-1776. By Thomas L. Purvis. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1986. 348 pp. $38.00. Proprietors, Patronage, and Paper Money is an excellent work that adds substantially to our knowledge of colonial New Jersey. Gracefully written, impressively researched, and in full discourse with the appropriate secondary literature, it is in almost every respect a model monograph. Thomas L. Purvis attempts to re-create the political world of eighteenthcentury New Jersey. He finds it a society dominated by an oligarchic gentry class that won and maintained office partly through the customs of a deferential society, partly because their financial dominance made them difficult to challenge, partly because only they could spare the leisure for affairs of state from scraping out a living. As intermarriage and increasingly complex business connections tied such families together their power steadily increased. At the pinnacle of power were the proprietors who originally had controlled both East and West Jersey as stock companies, and who continued to control much of the colony's lands after royal government was established. Purvis concludes that New Jersey legislators were in relative harmony on most issues after 1720. They united in seeking issues of paper money to relieve the chronic shortage of specie, cooperated in dispensing patronage, and feuded with a series of royal governors who resented the New Jersey Assembly's attempt to make itself a miniature parliament. Only an occasional wave ruffled this calm political sea, such as the land riots of the 1740s when an assembly conscious of popular resentment against the sharp practices of the proprietors refused the harsh punishments that governor and council demanded. The coming of the Revolution transformed patterns of influence and power in the colony. There was little evidence of challenge to gentry power in the 1760s; instead the gentry took the lead in asserting its control over the taxes that New Jerseyites paid. When such resistance took a radical turn in 1774 and 1775, however, many of the gentry balked. This led to profound change since "the indecisive behavior of the upper class created a leadership vacuum that forced previously apathetic elements of the populace to become politically involved." Purvis incidentally tells us much about New Jersey Quakers. They exercised power out of proportion to their numbers, since although only about 16% of the colony's population they provided 41 % of the assembly's membership before 1738 and 33% thereafter. Surprisingly, with the exception of an early period when high church governors threatened their religious liberties, Friends did not Articles and Publications129 form a cohesive voting bloc. Most striking is their behavior during the Seven Years War. In contrast to their fellow members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in the Pennsylvania legislature, Quaker assemblymen simply abstained from voting on war issues. They remained in the legislature in large numbers until the Revolution finally forced them out of office. This short review hardly does justice to the sophistication of Purvis's work, especially its use of quantitative methods, roll-call analysis, and collective biography. In short, Purvis has done everything that an historian ought to do and deserves considerable credit for it. Earlham CollegeThomas D. Hamm Articles and Publications Prepared by Claire B. Shetter Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081 A recent book, Our Quaker Ancestors, by Ellen Thomas Berry and David Allen Berry, has been published by the Genealogical Publishing Co...