rivalry at once sprang up among them as to which one should excel in building and planting.[1]
When private ownership in the soil in fee simple became general, one thousand acres were reserved for the maintenance of the ministers of the gospel in Virginia, three thousand for the support of the Governor, and ten thousand for the endowment of the university which was projected for the education of the Indians. For its own use the Company retained twelve thousand acres, in anticipation that the remaining parts of the country would be gradually taken up under patents by colonists who would pay a small quit-rent in return. The lands reserved for the Governor, the ministers, and the university were situated on the northern side of the Powhatan, and extended from Henrico to the Falls. The lands appropriated for the special use of the Company consisted of four apportionments of three thousand acres respectively, there being one apportionment in each of the four boroughs, beginning with Kecoughtan and ending with Henrico. The principal purpose sought in this general arrangement was to assure for the officers in Virginia a certain maintenance without the need of any reliance upon the resources of the Corporation in England. Whenever a new office was established, a certain number of acres
- ↑ Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 542. As I have already pointed out, the petition of the Assembly of 1619 to the Company in England shows very conclusively that patents to land in fee simple had been already granted to a few persons; first, it is possible, to the emancipated laborers of Charles Hundred in 1616, and afterwards by Argoll to those among the servants of the Company who were able to make extraordinary payments for their freedom and for allotments of land. The number of persons, however, in the enjoyment of a fee simple tenure when Yeardley began his administration, must have formed a very small proportion of the whole body of laborers and tenants. What the real number of these persons was, it is impossible to say. The information which the authorities give is only of a general character.
