This would signify about two and two-fifths shillings an acre, or, raising this sum to the purchasing value which it would probably have to-day in American currency, two dollars and eighty-five cents. In addition, the tract acquired was covered with an enormous growth of primæval forest, which made necessary a great expenditure of labor and a considerable expenditure of money to clear the ground. If the right was secured by the introduction of a servant, not only must the charge for his passage be taken into account, but also the amount required to clothe him. The cost of his apparel alone in 1649 was three pounds and seven shillings.[1] When it grew common for the planters to sue out patents on the basis of head rights acquired by the purchase of persons brought over by the
- ↑ Bullock’s Virginia, p. 36.
Bennett: “I, Richard Bennett, Governor and Captain General of Virginia, send greeting . . . whereas by the article dated at James City, this twelfth of March, 1651, concluded and signed by Commissioners appointed by authority of Parliament for the reducing, settling and governing of Virginia, it was provided that the privilege of fiftie acres for every person transported into the colonie should be continued as previously granted, and whereas by an Act of a Grand Assembly made April 21, 1652, it was provided that all patents shall hereafter be signed under the Governor’s hand with ye Secretaries authoritie . . . in law until a colonie seal shall be provided, now know ye, etc.” Palmer’s Calendar of Va. State Papers, vol. I, p. 1. See also Va. Land Patents, vol. 1652-1655, p. 42. When a patent was granted to the Governor himself at this time, it was signed by each member of the Council. See the instance of Governor Mathews in 1657. Va. Land Patents, vol. 1655-1664, pp. 158, 159. The following, proposed by Secretary Ludwell in 1677, was adopted by the Assembly as the form of the patent: “To all to whom &c I &c send &c whereas his most sacred Majestie hath been gratiously pleased by his royall letters pattents under the greate scale of England, bearing date at Westminster, the tenth day of October, in the twenty eighth yeare of his raigne, amongst other things in his said letters pattents, to continue and confirme the antient privileges and power of granting fifty acres of land for every person imported into this, his Majestie’s colony of Virginia, now knowe yee that I &c.” Hening's Statutes, vol. II, pp. 418, 419.
