It was expected that these tempting offers would rapidly people the
country with industrious settlers. Philip Carteret, a cousin of Sir
George, was appointed governor, and with about thirty emigrants,
several of whom were Frenchmen skilled in the art of salt-making, he
sailed for New York, where he arrived about the middle of July, 1665.
The vessel having been driven into the Chesapeake Bay the month before,
anchored at the mouth of the James River, from whence the governor sent
dispatches to New York. Among them was a copy of the duke's grant of New
Jersey. Governor Nicolls was astounded at the folly of the duke's grant,
and mortified by this dismemberment of a state over which he had been
ruling for many months with pride and satisfaction. But he bottled his
wrath until the arrival of Carteret, whom he received at Fort James with
all the honors due to his rank and station. That meeting in the
governor's apartments was a notable one. Mr. Lossing graphically
described it as follows:

"Nicolls was tall, athletic and about forty-five years of age, a
soldier, haughty and sometimes very irritable and brusque in speech when
excited. Carteret was shorter and fat, good-natured and affable, with
polished manners which he had learned by being much at court. He entered
the governor's room with Bollen, the commissary of the fort, when the
former arose, beckoned his secretary to withdraw, and received his
distinguished visitor cordially. But when Carteret presented the
outspread parchment, bearing the original of the duke's grant with his
grace's seal and signature, Nicolls could not restrain his feelings. His
temper flamed out in words of fierce anger. He stormed, and uttered
denunciations in language as respectful as possible. He paced the floor
backward and forward rapidly, his hands clasped behind his back, and
finally calmed down and begged his visitor's pardon for his
uncontrollable outburst of passion.

"Nicolls yielded gracefully yet sorrowfully to circumstances, and
contented himself with addressing a manly remonstrance to the duke, in
which he urged an arrangement for the grantees to give up their domain
in exchange for 'a few hundred thousand acres all along the seacoast.'"

The remonstrance came too late. New Jersey was already down on the maps
as a separate province. Governor Carteret at the head of a few followers
crossed over to his domain with a hoe on his shoulder in significance of
his desire to become a planter