Page 275, he places King William county above New Kent, and on both sides Pamunkey river; whereas it lies side by side with New Kent, and all on the north side Pamunkey river. He places King and Queen county upon the south of New Kent, at the head of Chickahominy river, which he says rises in it; whereas that county lies north of New Kent from head to foot, and two large rivers and two entire counties are between the head of Chickahominy and King & Queen. Essex, Richmond and Stafford counties, are as much wrong placed.
He says that York and Rappahannock rivers issue out of low marshes, and not from the mountains as the other rivers, which note he has taken from some old maps; but is a false account from my own view, for I was with our present governor at the head spring of both those rivers, and their fountains are in the highest ridge of mountains.
Page 276, he says that the neck of land between Niccocomoco river and the bay, is what goes by the name of the northern neck; whereas it is not above the twentieth part of the northern neck, for that contains all that track of land which is between Rappahannock and Potomac rivers.
How unfaithful and frontless must such an historian be, who can upon guess work introduce such falsities for truth, and bottom them upon such bold assertions? It would make a book larger than his own to expose his errors, for even the most general offices of the government he misrecites.
Page 298, he says the general court is called the quarter court, and is held every quarter of a year; whereas it never was held but three times a year, tho' it was called a quarter court. When he wrote, it was held but twice a year, as I had wrote in my book, and has not been called a quarter court these seventy-nine years. The county courts were never limited in their jurisdiction to any summons, neither was the sheriff ever a judge in them, as he would have it, but always a ministerial officer to execute their process, &c.
The account that I have given in the following sheets is plain and true, and if it be not written with so much judgment, or in so good a method and style as I could wish, yet in the truth of it I rest fully satisfied. In this edition I have also retrenched such particulars as related only to private transactions, and characters in the historical part, as being too diminutive to be transmitted to posterity, and set down the succession of the governors, with the more general incidents of their government, without reflection upon the private conduct of any person.