administration of the affairs of the Colony began in 1617, interfered, as we have seen, with the general distribution of the lands in fee simple at the time it had been designed to carry that measure into effect,[1] and it was not until 1619, upon the assumption of control by Yeardley, that the subdivision of the soil into separate holdings took place to the degree intended in the beginning. The immediate authority upon which this subdivision was made was an order passed at a Quarter Court, on the 18th of November, 1618, and directed to the Governor and Council in Virginia; the shareholder was by it exempted from the payment of quit-rents, a privilege granted to all who should receive their bills of adventure previous to the midsummer of 1625.[2] The acquisition of less than fifty shares by purchase from an old or new adventurer did not transfer to a subsequent holder all the advantages and immunities enjoyed by the first owner; the privilege of paying no quit-rents was under these circumstances restricted for every bill of the old adventure to a proportion of four persons who had been brought over previous to 1625.[3] It would seem that about one third of the persons who purchased shares in the Company disposed of them to others, about one-third emigrated to Virginia and established themselves on the estates which they had acquired, and about one-third dispatched their representatives to
- ↑ There had been issued, as I have already pointed out, a number of patents previous to 1619. The expression “general” is used advisedly. See Colonial Records of Virginia, State Senate Doct., Extra, 1874, p. 15.
- ↑ See Instructions to Yeardley, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. II, p. 164, for the authority for subdividing the lands of the Colony. For rents, see Laws and Constitutions, p. 21, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. III. The exemption from quit-rents was not to apply to persons who previous to 1625 should acquire fifty acres in the Colony by “transporting themselves or others into Virginia at their own charges,” p. 22.
- ↑ Laws and Constitutions, p. 23, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. III.
