CHAPTER II.
OF THE SUBDIVISIONS OF VIRGINIA.
§ 5. The country is divided into twenty-nine counties, and the counties, as they are in bigness, into fewer or more parishes, as they are filled with inhabitants.
The method of bounding the counties is at this time with respect to the convenience of having each county limited to one single river, for its trade and shipping, so that any one whose concerns are altogether in one county, may not be obliged to seek his freight and shipping in more than one river. Whereas at first, they were bounded with respect to the circuit, and the propinquity of the extremes to one common centre, by which means one county reached then quite across a neck of land from river to river. But this way of bounding the counties being found more inconvenient than the other, it was changed by a law into what it is now.
Besides this division into counties and parishes, there are two other subdivisions, which are subject to the rules and alterations made by the county courts, namely: into precincts or burroughs, for the limits of constables; and into precincts or walks, for the surveyors of highways.
§ 6. There is another division of the country into necks of land, which are the boundaries of the escheators, viz:
1. The northern neck between Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. This is the proprietary in the Lord Colepepper's family.