er, 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.

Sec. 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.

Sec. 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 neighbor