Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/444

 himself to secure naturalization for each one at the rate of three pounds sterling the head.

In the instances in which contentions arose as to the damage committed by a tenant, the points at issue were referred to a jury of the neighborhood. Such an altercation took place, in 1673, between Thomas Lenior and William Thompson. The jury appointed to inquire into the differences between them was directed to visit the plantation, which was at the time in the possession of Thompson under the terms of a lease, and after a careful examination of the premises, report upon the condition of the buildings when the estate was rented, and whether they had been blown down by a great storm recently occurring, or had fallen in consequence of the carelessness of Thompson. The conduct of the tenant in other respects was also to be strictly investigated.

Although throughout the seventeenth century the principal ways of communication from plantation to plantation and from one part of the Colony to another were the streams upon which the settlements stood, it became necessary at an early period to provide public roads to some extent. In 1632, the year in which the first general regulation looking to a system of highways seems to have been adopted, the authority was conferred by the General Assembly upon the Governor and Council, the Commissioners of the County Courts, and the inhabitants of each parish, acting separately, to establish such roads as the public convenience demanded. It was thought that those were most imperatively needed which should lead from one county to another, or to the different churches in each county. It was not until 1662 that a very strict law was passed with