and aloud without the intervention of the sneaking ballot. The candidates sat on the magistrates' bench above. The sheriff stood at the clerk's table below; called every voter to come, and how he voted. The favored candidate invariably bowed to the friend who gave him his vote, and sometimes thanked him in words. All over the Court-House were men and boys with pens and blank paper, who kept tally, and could at any moment tell the vote which each candidate had received * * The election over

*

and the result proclaimed by the Sheriff from the Court-House steps, forthwith the successful candidates were snatched up, hoisted each one on the shoulders of two stalwart fellows with two more behind to steady them, and carried thus to the tavern * * where there was a free treat for all at the candidate's charge." This is an account of an election in the beginning of this century, and it may be considered as characteristic of others earlier and later. The old time practice of marching in squads to the polls is still continued, if reports regarding the election of 1883 in Virginia were true. The people took great pride in sending a clever man to the Assembly, and expected him to look after his county's interests before those of the colony or of the crown. Such remarks as "I expect we shall have another election, as I am certain Mr. T will not be allow'd to take a seat in the house, where none but gentlemen of character ought to be admitted," show the sentiments of high-minded Virginians about their representatives. Before going to the Assembly the burgesses received the wishes and complaints of their constituents, and upon their return were wont in later times to report upon their own actions and the proceedings of the Assembly, which was composed of burgesses and the members of council, who after 1680 sat as an upper house. Burgesses were free from arrest during its sessions, and were paid by the county which sent them. The Assembly, called frequently to pass some act favorable to the Crown or its representative, the Governor, seized every opportunity to strengthen its rights the power of laying taxes in the colony, for instance, which has always been deemed an assertion of the right of self-government.

Notwithstanding the instructions to Governors for setting up various forms of government in the colony, no county was created before 1630. The unsettled state of the public mind on account of fears of assaults from the Indians, who hovered about outlying plantations, ready to fall upon the unprotected, the gathering together of the people into "great families" after the great Indian massacre, caused extensive powers to be granted

* W. O. Gregory: from the Farmer and Mechanic of Raleigh, N. C., in the Baltimorean, Oct. 27, 1883.

to the commissioners of the plantations, and in those persons were com、 bined military and civil jurisdiction. But in 1634 there were created eight counties, which were to be governed as shires in England, with lieutenants, elected sheriffs, sergeants and bailiffs. They were James Citty, the country around Jamestown, Henrico, around the settlement of Sir Thomas Dale, Charles Citty and Elizabeth Citty, around the forts, Warwick River, Warrosquayack, Charles River, and on the eastern shore, Accomac. That these counties, as a rule, took their names from and embraced the settlements is a curious phase in English institutions-for it was nothing more or less than the towns growing into the counties. This was very different from the origin of counties in England and in New England. In the former they represented the original divisions of petty kings or a collection of such small principalities under one strong hand; in the latter the county arose from a combination of townships for judicial purposes, it is supposed, for the origin of counties in that section has not been definitely ascertained. This peculiar feature of the Virginian county history is easily explained. Planting having originally been along the rivers, as transportation and intercourse required, was confined to a small area. As Indian scares became less frequent, people ventured forth beyond stockades, and gradually went away from the towns, in their pursuits of agriculture imposed upon them by inclination and the nature of the country. New planters came in and settled at once in comparatively remote regions, and population thus became too scattered to be ruled by a few military leaders. The complications arising from the new conditions, the importations of servants, the introduction of negro slavery and the settling of new lands, required a court and its proper ministers to secure harmony. The wishes of the original settlers had great influence in the selection of sites for court-houses, so that in some of the older counties many of the inhabitants were often considerably inconvenienced by having to travel forty or fifty miles to attend court, and saw a better alternative in submitting to injustice and injury. In the counties afterward created the attempt was made to place the court-house as near the center as possible, but as long as population remained in cismontane regions there was a natural desire to seek the river banks for sites. The great point to be remembered is that at first the counties were the outspreading of towns, not that the towns, as later, were the results of the people in the county seeking a place for the transaction of business necessary even in a planting community.

*

In 1680 there were twenty counties, a word introduced into the laws in 1639, and the number increased as it became necessary. For Englishmen Spotswood Letters, Brock, p. 37.

*

were not content to remain always in piedmont regions, but crossing the mountains gave names to vast tracts of territory, out of which were afterward carved states. In the formation of new counties natural boundaries were adopted whenever it was possible to be done. When the county had finally become crystallized, it was divided into parishes, precincts for the constables, and walks for the surveyors of highways, the last two divisions being subject to such rules and alterations as the county court thought fit to make. Every county bore its share of the public levy, was obliged to pay the charges of its convicted prisoners, to make and clear its roads, and to keep the rivers free from underbrush and other obstructions. The public roads were made by the inhabitants under the guidance of the surveyors of highways and were extended to the county lines. The obligation to work on the roads finally devolved upon laboring tithables, who were summoned by the surveyors. Bridges were in the care of surveyors of highways, and when a bridge was built between two counties, the expense was shared by those counties. In the absence of bridges many ferries were established at convenient places along deep rivers.

Turning now from a consideration of the county in general to a study of the particular officers in the county, one is struck almost at first glance by the prominence of the lieutenant, anciently the commander, who besides being the chief of militia in his county, was a member of the Council, and as such, a judge of the highest tribunal in the colony. In early days he was charged with the duty of keeping sufficient powder and ammunition in each plantation, of seeing that people attended church regularly and refrained from work and traveling on Sunday; of levying men to battle with dusky foes who might be lurking in the vicinity of bogs; of making annually a muster of men, women and children, and of reporting to the governor the names of new comers. He was obliged also to see that there were no infringements of the tobacco laws, a most important duty in Virginia. With commissioners of the Governor he held monthly courts for the settlement of suits not exceeding in value one hundred pounds of tobacco, and from this court appeal was to the Governor and Council. This court also heard petty causes and inflicted proper punishments. But as the head of the militia the lieutenant was most important. The military character imposed upon the colony in the beginning was for some years necessary, but the practice of arms seems to have been neglected for a time after Yeardley's return to the colony. The record of the reorganization of the militia is found in the law made in 1624-25: "That at the beginning of July next the inhabitants of every corporation shall fall upon their adjoining salvages as we did the last yeare, those that shall be hurte upon service to

be cured at the publique charge; in case any be lamed to be maintained by the country according to his person and quality."

This order finds explanation in an account of the plantation written in 1624 by some of the surviving planters. It states that on March 22, 162122, the savages, who had been allowed many liberties in their intercourse with the whites, fell upon them without warning and slew many. Falling upon the savages was retaliation and self-protection in their weakened condition. The laudable and Christian design of converting and educating the savages, as set forth in the writings of the first twenty years of the century, was changed to a plan of extermination, in which the planters were still actuated by Christian motives, if one relies upon their own statements, "Our gov Counsell and others have used their uttermost and Christian endeavors in prosequtinge revenge against the bloody salvadges, and have endeavored to restore the Collonye to her former prosperitye, wherein they have used great diligence and industrye, imployinge many forces abroade for the rooting them out of severall places that thereby we may come to live in better securitie, doubtinge not but in time we shall clean drive them from these partes, and thereby have the free libertie and range for our cattle." This was the same kind of spirit as that shown by most of the colonies in their relations with the red men. So long as it was convenient or politic, treaties were observed, but little was required to change the feeling of brotherly love to the conviction that the "dead Indian is the best Indian." The seemingly heartless but necessary decision, "the Indian must go,” was made at that early date and by a community whose members in a century's time had learned to be proud of Indian ancestry. But fear of Indians kept the militia together, and in 1690 it consisted of 6,570 horse and foot; in 1703 of 10,556; in 1715 of 14,000; and in 1755 of 28,000. It was during the rule of Spotswood that the militia reached a high state of perfection, the effect of which was noticeable in the French and Indian War. The Governor was the commander-in-chief of the militia, and he appointed in each county a lieutenant, upon whom was conferred the honorary title of colonel, when he was a member of the Council. To this system of honorary titles has been traced by some the abundance of military titles in the South. The custom must have developed rapidly, for a writer in 1745 felt called upon to remark, “Wherever you travel in Maryland (as also in Virginia and Carolina) your ears are constantly astonished at the number of Colonels, Majors and Captains that you hear mentioned." +

* Hening's Statutes, i., p. 123.

Col. Rec., Va.,

Itinerant Observations in America, London Magazine, 1745-46.

p. 83.

The ancient pianters-that is, those who came into Virginia before or with Captain Gates-and their posterity were exempted from military ser vice, unless as officers; new settlers were not obliged to serve for one year after their arrival, and no person could be forced to exercise in arms outside of his parish or his county. In February, 1645, it was decreed that in certain counties every fifteen tithables should furnish and equip one man for service against Indians. This provision was afterward modified in a law that every forty persons should provide an able man and horse "with furniture, well and compleatly armed with a case of good pistolls, carbine or short gunn and a sword, together with two pounds of powder and tenn pounds of leaden bulletts or high swan shott, and alsoe that each respective forty tythables doe provide and send up to the severall storehouses five bushells of shelled Indian corn and two bushells of meale, eighty pounds of well salted porke, or one hundred pounds of good, well salted beefe for fower months' provision such man and his horse." * The bodies of troopers raised in this manner were called rangers, and from time to time patrolled districts likely to suffer from Indian invasion.

Governor Berkeley reported in 1671 that all freemen were bound to drill every month in their counties, but this rule was not always strictly followed. Governor Dinwiddie paid a great deal of attention to the proper training and regular exercise of his militia, and he divided the colony into four districts, each commanded by an adjutant to drill first the officers, then each company separately. † Certain persons were excused from militia duty; but if an overseer of slaves who had been excused should appear at muster without arms or not participating, he was liable to a fine. The celebrated William Byrd, while traveling with a surveying party to North Carolina in 1734, witnessed and recorded a parade as follows: "It happened that some Isle of Wight militia were exercising in the Adjoining pasture, and there were Females enough attending that Martial Appearance to form a more invincible corps." General musters were held annually, and company drills monthly, or once in three months. At intervals of ten or

*Hening, i., 292, ii, 435.

"Colonel Stephen

On August 27th, 1763, Sir Jeffery Amherst wrote to Sir Wm. Johnson : with a body of 4 or 500 men of the Virginia militia is advanced as far as Forts Cumberland and Bedford with a view not only of covering the frontiers, but of acting offensively against the Savages. This publick spirited Colony has also sent a body of the like number of men under the command of Colonel Lewis for the defence and protection of their South west frontiers. What a contrast this makes between the conduct of the Pennsylvanians and Virginians highly to the honor of the latter, but places the former in a most despicable light imaginable." Documents relating to the Col. Hist. of N. Y., vii., p. 546.

Capt. Byrd's Narrative of the Dividing Line, vol. i., p. 70.