Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/534

 were two hundred thousand acres in this patent. In 1627, the Secretary of the Colony was directed by the General Court to draw up, for its information, a list of all the properties in the limits of this Hundred, including a statement of the amount of the rents paid by tenants in occupation of the lands and houses, and a similar report was to be made at every quarter and entered on record. The members of the Society residing in England were to be informed of this regulation. In spite of this care for the preservation of their interests, the property of these planters melted away to such a degree that they acknowledged in court, in 1635, that all was gone but the stock of cattle then in dispute. Martin&#8217;s Hundred covered an area of eighty thousand acres, and yet it was only settled in part; after the fall of the Company, not many years passed before the whole of this area was in the possession of private individuals. In 1636, William Tucker and others obtained a patent to eight thousand acres in Barclay Hundred, to which they had acquired title by a deed of sale from the adventurers of that association.

The second ground on which a grant of land was made was the performance of meritorious service. Among those who, during the administration of the Company, were included in the class of persons deserving of this form of reward, were ministers of the Church, officers of State and justice, physicians, and others who had commended themselves by highly useful actions in the Colony to favorable consideration. In the commission which