The History of Virginia, in Four Parts

by Robert Beverley

§ 123. After this accident of plant cutting, the Lord Colepepper returned, and held his second assembly, in which he contrived to gain another great advantage over the country. His lordship, in his first voyage thither, perceiving how easily he could twist and manage the people, conceived new hopes of retrieving the propriety of the Northern Neck, as being so small a part of the colony. He conceived that while the remainder escaped free, which was far the greater part, they would not engage in the interest of the lesser number; especially considering the discouragements they had met with before, in their former solicitation: though all this while, and for many years afterwards, his lordship did not pretend to lay public claim to any part of the propriety.

It did not square with this project that appeals should be made to the general assembly, as till then had been the custom. He feared the burgesses would be too much in the interest of their countrymen, and adjudge the inhabitants of the Northern Neck to have an equal liberty and privilege in their estates with the rest of Virginia, as being settled upon the same foot. In order therefore to make a better pennyworth of those poor people, he studied to overturn this odious method of appealing to the assembly, and to fix the last resort in another court.

To bring this point about, his lordship contrived to blow up a difference in the assembly between the council and the burgesses, privately encouraging the burgesses to insist upon the privilege of determining all appeals by themselves, exclusive of the council; because they, having given their opinions before in the general court, were, for that reason, unfit judges in appeals from themselves to the assembly. This succeeded according to his wish, and the burgesses bit at the bait, under the notion of privilege, never dreaming of the snake that lay in the grass, nor considering the danger of altering an old constitution so abruptly. Thus my lord gained his end; for he represented that quarrel with so many aggravations, that he got an instruction from the king to take away all appeals from the general court to the assembly, and cause them to be made to himself in council, if the thing in demand was of £300 value, otherwise no appeal from the general court.

§ 124. Of this his lordship made sufficient advantage; for in the confusion that happened in the end of king James the Second's reign, viz., in October 1688, he having got an assignment from the other patentees, gained a favorable report from the king's council at law upon his patent for the Northern Neck.

When he had succeeded in this, his lordship's next step was to engage some noted inhabitant of the place to be on his side. Accordingly he made use of his cousin Secretary Spencer, who lived in the said Neck, and was esteemed as wise and great a man as any of the council. This gentleman did but little in his lordship's service, and only gained some few strays, that used to be claimed by the coroner, in behalf of the king.

Upon the death of Mr. Secretary Spencer, he engaged another noted gentleman, an old stander in that country, though not of the Northern Neck, Col. Philip Ludwell, who was then in England. He went over with this grant in the year 1690, and set up an office in the Neck, claiming some escheats; but he likewise could make nothing of it. After him Col. George Brent and Col. William Fitzhugh, that were noted lawyers and inhabitants of the said Neck, were employed in that affair: but succeeded no better than their predecessors. The people, in the mean while, complained frequently to their assemblies, who at last made another address to the king; but there being no agent in England to prosecute it, that likewise miscarried. At last Colonel Richard Lee, one of the council, a man of note and inhabitant of the Northern Neck, privately made a composition with the proprietors themselves for his own land. This broke the ice, and several were induced to follow so great an example; so that by degrees, they were generally brought to pay their quit-rents into the hands of the proprietors' agents. And now at last it is managed for them by Col. Robert Carter, another of the council, and the greatest freeholder in that proprietary.

§ 125. To return to my Lord Colepepper's government, I cannot omit a useful thing which his lordship was pleased to do, with relation to their courts of justice. It seems, nicety of pleading, with all the juggle of Westminster Hall, was creeping into their courts. The clerks began in some cases to enter the reasons with the judgments, pretending to set precedents of inviolable form to be observed in all future proceedings. This my lord found fault with, and retrenched all dilatory pleas, as prejudicial to justice, keeping the courts close to the merits of the cause, in order to bring it to a speedy determination, according to the innocence of former times, and caused the judgments to be entered up short, without the reason, alledging that their courts were not of so great experience as to be able to make precedents to posterity; who ought to be left at liberty to determine, according to the equity of the controversy before them.

§ 126. In his time also were dismantled the forts built by Sir Henry Chicheley at the heads of the rivers, and the forces there were disbanded, as being too great a charge. The assembly appointed small parties of light horse in their stead, to range by turns upon the frontiers. These being chosen out of the neighboring inhabitants, might afford to serve at easier rates, and yet do the business more effectually; they were raised under the title or name of rangers.

§ 127. After this the Lord Colepepper returned again for England, his second stay not being much longer than the first; and Sir Henry Chicheley being dead, he proclaimed his kinsman, Mr. Secretary Spencer, president, though he was not the eldest member of the council.

§ 128. The next year, being 1684, upon the Lord Colepepper's refusing to return, Francis, Lord Howard of Effingham, was sent over governor. In order to increase his perquisites, he imposed the charge of an annual under seal of twenty shillings each for school masters; five pounds for lawyers at the general court, and fifty shillings each lawyer at the county courts. He also extorted an excessive fee for putting the seal to all probates of wills, and letters of administration, even where the estates of the deceased were of the meanest value. Neither could any be favored with such administration, or probate, without paying that extortion. If any body presumed to remonstrate against it, his lordship's behavior towards that man was very severe. He kept several persons in prison and under confinement, from court to court, without bringing them to trial. Which proceedings, and many others, were so oppressive, that complaints were made thereof to the king, and Colonel Philip Ludwell was appointed agent to appear against him in England. Whereupon the seal-money was taken off.