685 the Duke of York ascended the throne of England as James II,
and all that was naturally to be expected from such a bigoted despot was
soon realized. The persecutions of the Covenanters grew worse. Crowded
into prisons to die of thirst and suffocation, shot down on the
highways, tied to stakes to be drowned by the rising tide, the whole
Calvinistic population of Scotland seemed doomed to extermination. Again
they were told of America as the only place where religious liberty was
allowed, and in addition a book was circulated among them called "The
Model of the Government of the Province of East Jersey in America."
These efforts were partially successful. More Covenanters came than
before, but nothing like the numbers of Quakers that flocked to
Pennsylvania. The whole population of East Jersey--New Englanders,
Dutch, Scotch Covenanters, and all--did not exceed five thousand and
possibly was not over four thousand.

Some French Huguenots, such as came to many of the English colonies
after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes of 1685, were added to the
East Jersey population. A few went to Salem in West Jersey, and some
of these became Quakers. In both the Jerseys, as elsewhere, they became
prominent and influential in all spheres of life. There was a decided
Dutch influence, it is said, in the part nearest New York, emanating
from the Bergen settlement in which the Dutch had succeeded in
establishing themselves in 1660 after the Indians had twice driven them
from Pavonia. Many descendants of Dutch families are still found in
that region. Many Dutch characteristics were to be found in that region
throughout colonial times. Many of the houses had Dutch stoops or
porches at the door, with seats where the family and visitors sat on
summer evenings to smoke and gossip. Long Dutch spouts extended out
from the eaves to discharge the rain water into the street. But the
prevailing tone of East Jersey seems to have been set by the Scotch
Presbyterians and the New England Congregationalists. The College of
New Jersey, afterward known as Princeton, established in 1747, was the
result of a movement among the Presbyterians of East Jersey and New
York.

All these elements of East Jersey, Scotch Covenanters, Connecticut
Puritans, Huguenots, and Dutch of the Dutch Reformed Church, were in
a sense different but in reality very much in accord and congenial
in their ideas of religion and politics. They were all sturdy,
freedom-loving P