hich arose
from artificially created inequalities, economically and politically.
With the great landed estates came tenantry, wage slavery and chattel
slavery, the one condition the natural generator of the others.

The rebellious tendency of the poor colonists against becoming tenants,
and the usurpation of the land, were clearly brought out by Bellomont in
a letter written on Nov. 28, 1700, to the Lords of Trade. He complained
that "people are so cramped here for want of land that several families
within my own knowledge and observation are remov'd to the new country
(a name they give to Pennsylvania and the Jerseys) for, to use Mr.
Graham's expression to me, and that often repeated, too, what man will
be such a fool as to become a base tenant to Mr. Dellius, Colonel
Schuyler, Mr. Livingston (and so he ran through the whole role of our
mighty landgraves) when for crossing Hudson's River that man can, for a
song, purchase a good freehold in the Jerseys."

If the immigrant happened to be able to muster a sufficient sum he
could, indeed, become an independent agriculturist in New Jersey and in
parts of Pennsylvania and provide himself with the tools of trade. But
many immigrants landed with empty pockets and became laborers dependent
upon the favor of the landed proprietors. As for the artisans--the
carpenters, masons, tailors, blacksmiths--they either kept to the cities
and towns where their trade principally lay, or bonded themselves to the
lords of the manors.

ATTEMPT AT CONFISCATION THWARTED.

Bellomont fully understood the serious evils which had been injected
into the body politic and strongly applied himself to the task of
confiscating the great estates. One of his first proposals was to urge
upon the Lords of Trade the restriction of all governors throughout the
colonies from granting more than a thousand acres to any man without
leave from the king, and putting a quit rent of half a crown on every
hundred acres, this sum to go to the royal treasury. This suggestion was
not acted upon. He next attacked the assembly of New York and called
upon it to annul the great grants. In doing this he found that the most
powerful members of the assembly were themselves the great land owners
and were putting obstacle after obstacle in his path. After great
exertions he finally prevailed upon the assembly to vacate at least two
of the grants, those to Evans and Bayard. The assembly did this probably
as a sop to Bellomont