t had been appropriated for the
repairing of roads. Hill defended himself vigorously, but there can be
little doubt that he was to some extent guilty.[96]

The Council members were the boldest of all in dishonesty, for they
did not scruple to defraud even the English government. There was a
tax on land in the colony called the quit rents, the proceeds of which
went to the king. Since there was very little coin in Virginia, this
tax was usually paid in tobacco. Except on rare occasions the quit
rents were allowed to remain in the colony to be drawn upon for
various governmental purposes, and for this reason it was convenient
to sell the tobacco before shipping it to England. These sales were
conducted by the Treasurer and through his connivance the councillors
were frequently able to purchase all the quit rents tobacco at very
low prices. In case the sale were by auction, intimidation was used to
prevent others than Council members from bidding. In 1697, Edward
Chilton testified before the Lords Commissioners of Trade and
Plantations that the quit rents had brought but four or six shillings
per hundred pounds, although the regular price of tobacco was twenty
shilling.[97]

The wealthy planters consistently avoided the payment of taxes. Their
enormous power in the colonial government made this an easy matter,
for the collectors and sheriffs in the various counties found it
convenient not to question their statements of the extent of their
property, while none would dare to prosecute them even when glaring
cases of fraud came to light. Estates of fifty or sixty thousand acres
often yielded less in quit rents than plantations of one-third their
size.[98] Sometimes the planters refused to pay taxes at all on their
land and no penalty was inflicted on them. Chilton declared that the
Virginians would be forced to resign their patents to huge tracts of
country if the government should demand the arrears of quit rents.[99]

Even greater frauds were perpetrated by prominent men in securing
patents for land. The law required that the public territory should be
patented only in small parcels, that a house should be built upon
each grant, and that a part should be put under cultivation. All these
provisions were continually neglected. It was no uncommon thing for
councillors to obtain patents for twenty or thirty thousand acres, and
sometimes they owned as much as sixty thousand acres. They neglected
frequently to erect houses on