expressly stated to be purely ministerial.[1] They were mere agents and attorneys of the parent body, without even the right to discriminate except so far as they were allowed to do so by the explicit terms of the instructions which they had received. Apprehensive that the authorities of the Colony might find some loophole for the commission of fraud even when they were carrying out a command which minutely prescribed the course to be pursued, a fraud which would diminish the revenues of the adventurers in England and indirectly increase the cost of the enterprise, the Company was careful to establish the regulation that no grant by the Governor and Council should be absolute and exclusive, although the deed bore the impression of the corporate seal and acknowledged that the original right of conveyance resided in the Company, which had been delegated for the reasons set down, until the document had been forwarded to London, and had been examined, approved, and ratified at a Quarter Court.[2]
- ↑ The earliest patents recorded in the Patent Books in the Office of the Register in Richmond, Va., which begin about 1623, state that the Governor and Council who make the grants derived their authority from the Orders and Laws passed in the Quarter Court which met Nov. 18, 1618. See Virginia Land Patents, vol. 1623-1643, p. 1. The following was the first general clause: “To all . . . know that I, Sir George Yeardley, . . . by virtue of the great charter of Orders and Laws agreed on by the Treasurer, Council and Company of adventurers and planters for the first Southern Colony of Virginia according to the authority granted them by his Majesty under the great seal, and by them dated at London, 18th day of November, 1618, and directed to myself and the Council there resident, doe, with the approbation . . . of the Council who are joyned in commission with me, give and grant,” etc. This form was used by Yeardley in 1620. See Virginia Land Patents, vol. 1623-1643, p. 476. See also Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. II, p. 219, for a copy of a second deed. The Company’s delegation to Yeardley of the right to grant patents will be found in his instructions, printed in the same volume, pp. 154-165.
- ↑ Abstracts of Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London, vol. II, p. 6.
