of Council and the justices as impudent rascals. These things they had patiently endured, as well as his gross revilings of their religious society, but in his recent comments upon the arrest of Babbit he not only encouraged sedition and breach of the peace, but aimed a blow at the Proprietary government, since if Quakers could not act in judicial capacities the bench must remain vacant. Such conduct required their intervention, as well to check him as to discourage others. The Friends' yearly meeting, held at Burlington, on the 7th of July, 1692, disowned Keith, and their testimony against him, Richardson and many others signed.
Robert Quarry, judge of the court of admiralty, received his appointment from the Crown. He seems to have been personally objectionable, and his authority, being beyond the control of the Proprietary, was not submitted to even at that early day without evidences of discontent and some opposition. An affair occurring in the year 1698 led to a conflict of jurisdiction between him and the provincial judges, in which he obtained an easy triumph; but his success appears only to have been satisfactory when it had culminated in their personal humiliation. John Adams imported a quantity of goods, which, for want of a certificate, were seized and given into the custody of the marshal of the admiralty court, and although he afterward complied with all the necessary legal forms, Quarry refused to redeliver them. The governor would not interfere, but Anthony Morris, one of the judges of the county court, issued a writ of replevin, in obedience to which the sheriff put Adams in possession of his property. Thereupon, Quarry wrote to England complaining of what he considered to be an infringement by the Proprietary government upon his jurisdiction. On the 27th of July, 1698, Morris, Richardson and James Fox pre-
