Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/590

 of the College of William and Mary was laid, a very important part of the quit-rents went to the construction of its buildings. Near the close of the century, the amount collected in the Colony did not exceed eight hundred pounds sterling each year.

There was in Virginia a great area of soil which had lapsed to the King. This description applied only to ground that had been forfeited because the provision as to seating before the expiration of three years had not been complied with. An estate might have been granted to two persons in succession, and for failure to observe this condition, in both instances have lapsed. A plantation which had been once seated, though afterwards abandoned, was not considered to fall into this classification, nor did the rule apply to land of which actual possession had been taken by a second patentee after its abandonment by the first.