Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/582

 patent to a tract without either building on it or cultivating it. There would always be sufficient lands for the population, however rapidly expanding from within or enlarging from without, to permit the erection of as many new plantations as the increasing number of people required. As it was in the power of every man of means to sue out a patent to an estate of his own, so every man who looked forward to acquiring land was interested more or less in a loose interpretation of the law as to seating. A planter was disposed to-day to wink at his neighbor&#8217;s dereliction in this respect, because he might desire tomorrow to imitate that neighbor&#8217;s example, and in his turn expect to have his own dereliction overlooked. Both naturally argued that the prosperity of Virginia at large remained unaffected, the area of unappropriated soil being practically boundless. Nay more, the interest of the Colony, in their opinion, was positively benefited, because their action had a tendency to extend the frontier by compelling new settlers to take up lands further in the wilderness. The expediency of the law as to seating, a law that was eminently wise in the beginning, in some measure diminished with the passage of time. In an important degree the provision fell into desuetude, as revealed in the fact that it was frequently evaded altogether, or conformed to in a manner wholly inadequate.

The second condition attached to the grant of a patent was the quit-rent. Under the provisions of the laws adopted in 1618, all persons, whose tenure of their plantations was based upon the ordinary head right, were required to pay an annual rent of twelve pence for every fifty acres conveyed to them, but this charge was not to begin to operate until seven years had passed. The