that York and Rappahannock rivers issue out of low marshes, and
not from the mountains as the other rivers, which note he has taken from
some old maps; but is a false account from my own view, for I was with
our present governor at the head spring of both those rivers, and their
fountains are in the highest ridge of mountains.

Page 276, he says that the neck of land between Niccocomoco river and
the bay, is what goes by the name of the northern neck; whereas it is
not above the twentieth part of the northern neck, for that contains all
that track of land which is between Rappahannock and Potomac rivers.

How unfaithful and frontless must such an historian be, who can upon
guess work introduce such falsities for truth, and bottom them upon such
bold assertions? It would make a book larger than his own to expose his
errors, for even the most general offices of the government he
misrecites.

Page 298, he says the general court is called the quarter court, and is
held every quarter of a year; whereas it never was held but three times
a year, tho' it was called a quarter court. When he wrote, it was held
but twice a year, as I had wrote in my book, and has not been called a
quarter court these seventy-nine years. The county courts were never
limited in their jurisdiction to any summons, neither was the sheriff
ever a judge in them, as he would have it, but always a ministerial
officer to execute their process, &c.

The account that I have given in the following sheets is plain and true,
and if it be not written with so much judgment, or in so good a method
and style as I could wish, yet in the truth of it I rest fully
satisfied. In this edition I have also retrenched such particulars as
related only to private transactions, and characters in the historical
part, as being too diminutive to be transmitted to posterity, and set
down the succession of the governors, with the more general incidents of
their government, without reflection upon the private conduct of any
person.

INTRODUCTION.

The name of BEVERLEY has long been a familiar one in Virginia. It is
said that the family may be traced among the records of the town of
Beverley in England, as far back as to the time of King John. During the
reign of Henry VIII, one of the Beverleys was appointed by the Crown a
commissioner for enquiring into the state and condition of the northern
monasteries. The family received some grants of church property, and one
bra