Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/583

 shareholder, as we have seen, held his lands acquired by bills of adventure, or by transportation of persons to Virginia exempted from this imposition. During the administration of the Company, the quit-rents were paid to a special officer who resided in the Colony. One of the first petitions drawn up by the Assembly of 1619 to be presented to the authorities of the Corporation in England, requested that an agent should be sent to Virginia invested with the powers of a treasurer, and instructed to collect the different rents as they fell due; it was urged in strong terms that this agent should be ordered to receive the rents, not in the form of money but in the form of valuable agricultural commodities.

When the letters patent of the Company were recalled, the quit-rents became payable to such persons as the King should designate; it was not, however, until Jerome Hawley arrived in 1637, as the first treasurer who had been appointed since the administration of the affairs of the Colony by the Crown began, that any step was taken looking to their collection. Announcement was then made that all persons who were now in possession of lands in Virginia were expected to lay before the new officer the title deeds to their property, in order that he might ascertain the number of years during which each landowner had held his estate, and in consequence the amount of quit-rents in which he was indebted to the