Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/527

 expressly stated to be purely ministerial. They were mere agents and attorneys of the parent body, without even the right to discriminate except so far as they were allowed to do so by the explicit terms of the instructions which they had received. Apprehensive that the authorities of the Colony might find some loophole for the commission of fraud even when they were carrying out a command which minutely prescribed the course to be pursued, a fraud which would diminish the revenues of the adventurers in England and indirectly increase the cost of the enterprise, the Company was careful to establish the regulation that no grant by the Governor and Council should be absolute and exclusive, although the deed bore the impression of the corporate seal and acknowledged that the original right of conveyance resided in the Company, which had been delegated for the reasons set down, until the document had been forwarded to London, and had been examined, approved, and ratified at a Quarter Court.