Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/585

 quantities of land than they could bring under cultivation. The revocation was confirmed in the reign of James the Second.

In the course of the very year in which the law was adopted by the Assembly providing for a more careful collection of the quit-rents, Howard Horsey petitioned the King to appoint him to the Receiver-Generalship of the Colony, which had recently fallen vacant, on the ground that under previous administrations the office had been of no value on account of the failure of the incumbents to perform its duties. Horsey asserted his ability to make the position profitable to the throne, and he prayed for a lease of it for fourteen years, or a nomination of two lives at a reasonable rate, to be settled in the form of an annual rent. Nearly a decade subsequent to the date of this petition, the Treasurer of Virginia complained with much emphasis that the payment of one shilling for every fifty acres was still neglected, and urged as a remedy that the Assembly should give him the power to distrain upon the property of all delinquents. This request was accorded, subject to the condition that the latter should be permitted to replevy their goods when seized, upon furnishing sufficient security, from which they were only to be released after a hearing in the County Courts or by the Governor and Council. An Act passed nearly ten years later shows that the remissness in paying the quitrents still continued; this statute allowed the counties to compound for their arrears by settling during the course of the following two years in double the amount of their