t till one was elected which would pass the laws he wanted.
Afterwards the assemblies were less compliant, and, under the lead of
two able men, Lewis Morris of East Jersey and Samuel Jennings, a Quaker
of West Jersey, they stood up for their rights and complained to the
mother country. But Cornbury went on fighting them, granted monopolies,
established arbitrary fees, prohibited the proprietors from selling
their lands, prevented three members of the assembly duly elected from
being sworn, and was absent in New York so much of the time that the
laws went unexecuted and convicted murderers wandered about at large.
In short, he went through pretty much the whole list of offenses of a
corrupt and good-for-nothing royal governor of colonial times. The union
of the two colonies consequently seemed to involve no improvement over
former conditions. At last, the protests and appeals of proprietors and
people prevailed, and Cornbury was recalled.

Quieter times followed, and in 1738 New Jersey had the satisfaction
of obtaining a governor all her own. The New York Governor had always
neglected Jersey affairs, was difficult of access, made appointments
and administered justice in the interests of New York, and forced Jersey
vessels to pay registration fees to New York. Amid great rejoicing over
the change, the Crown appointed the popular leader, Lewis Morris, as
governor. But by a strange turn of fate, when once secure in power,
he became a most obstinate upholder of royal prerogative, worried the
assembly with adjournments, and, after Cornbury, was the most obnoxious
of all the royal governors.

The governors now usually made Burlington their capital and it became,
on that account, a place of much show and interest. The last colonial
governor was William Franklin, an illegitimate son of Benjamin
Franklin, and he would probably have made a success of the office if
the Revolution had not stopped him. He had plenty of ability, affable
manners, and was full of humor and anecdote like his father, whom he is
said to have somewhat resembled. He had combined in youth a fondness
for books with a fondness for adventure, was comptroller of the colonial
post office and clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly, served a couple of
campaigns in the French and Indian Wars, went to England with his father
in 1757, was admitted to the English Bar, attained some intimacy with
the Earl of Bute and Lord Fairfax, and through the latter obtained the
governo