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 COLONIAL COUNCILLORS OF STATI-

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patent for the Northern Neck, which the King had granted. In 1674, he, together with 1-ran- cis ]\Ioryson and Thomas Ludwell, was ap- pointed an agent for \irginia to secure from the King a repeal of his grant of Virginia to Lords Arlington and Culpeper, and a new charter. The charter which they attempted to gain, and which embodied the ideas of the colonists as to their rights, was a splendid document and inckided among other provis- ions the prophetic stipulation that the Virgin- ians, in common with all Englishmen, should not be taxed without their own consent. Un- fortunately for the efforts of the agents, the news of Bacon's rebellion reached England just as the King seemed ready to sign the charter and served him as an excuse for with- holding it. He withdrew his grant of the colony to the two noblemen, however, so that the colony were much beholden to their agents' efforts. After his return to the colony, he played a prominent part in the suppression of the "plant cutting" insurrection and continued to be present at the meetings of the council until 1683, after which he seems to have visited England. His only daughter Elizabeth mar- ried Harry Beverley.

Stegg, Thomas, Jr., was a son of the first Thomas Stegg. councillor, a sketch of whose life appears above. The earliest fact men- tioned of the younger Stegg is that he was a justice of the peace of Charles City in 1661. On Nov. 24, 1664, a commission from the King confirming Thomas Stegg's appointment as auditor general was read in court. He w^as a member of the council in 1666 and died in 1670. His sister, Grace Stegg, was mother of the first William Byrd of Westover.

Bland, Theodorick, the ninth son of John Bland, an eminent merchant of London and

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member of the X'irginia Company, was born on Jan. 16, 1629. Lie was a merchant at St. Lucar, Spain, in 1646, at the Canary Islands in 1647-48, and came to Virginia in 1654 as the representative of his father, who had large interests in the colony. He settled at Berke- ley Hundred, Charles City county, and in 1659-60 he represented Henrico in the house of burgesses, of which he was the speaker. By instructions from England, dated Sept. 2, 1662, the act passed by the assembly, imposing two shillings per hogshead on all tobacco from Virginia, was confirmed and "Theodorick Bland, Esq." was appointed collector of the same. A few years later Bland was appointed a member of the council, and was present June 21, 1665, J^b' 10, 1666, and March and April, 1670. On April 17, 1665, Theodorick Bland bought "Westover," Charles City county, an estate of 1,200 acres, for £170 sterling. His grandson, Richard Bland of "Jordan's," who says that his grandfather was "both in fortune and understanding, inferior to no person of his time in the country," also says that he built and gave to the county and parish the church at Westover, "with ten acres of land, a court- house and prison." This may have been so, but it is more likely that he only gave the land. The worthy councillor died on April 23, 1671, and was buried in the chancel of Westover church. The church has long since disappeared but the tomb remains with his arms and the following epitaph :

S. M.

"Prudentis & Eruditi Theodorici

Bland Armig. qui obijt Aprilis

23d A. D. 1671 Aetatis 41

Cujus Vidua Maestissima Anna^

Filia Richard Bennett Armig :

hoc Marmor Posuit."