Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/419

 11. REINSCH: COLONIAL COMMON LAW 405 cunning, wit and power and after the laws and customs of this colony, and as near as may be after the laws of the realm of England." ^ There was not in Virginia, as we have noted in many of the other colonies, a system of courts whose magis- trates were elected by the people. The county courts were presided over by eight or ten gentlemen receiving their com- mission from the governor. Notwithstanding the source of their appointment, these men, not being educated in law, would perhaps not be governed by considerations much different from those obtaining in the popular courts of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The large number of the members of the court gives it the character of a popular tribunal, recalling the Doomsmen of the Anglo-Saxon courts, who declared the custom and fixed the mode of trial. Appeal lay from these courts to the general court, composed of governor and coun- cil. Their jurisdiction was developed by custom and the forms of proceedings were quite irregular. They also exercised a general chancery jurisdiction. By the statutes of 1661-1662, procedure in the courts was regulated. At the time of the Restoration, Virginia seems to have been especially anxious to show herself loyal to England, and these enactments breathe a deep respect for the common law. In the preamble it is stated that the legislature has endeavored in all things to adhere to these " excellent and refined laws of England to which we profess to acknowledge all due obedience and reverence." As a reason for enacting laws at all they assign the vast volume of the English law from which courts would be unable to collect the necessary prin- ciples without the aid of such codification.^ The former laws are repealed and a new code is enacted. As some former laws restrained the trial by jury quite contrary to the laws of England, the law of juries is restated with special carefulness and precision. It is interesting to note in this connection that the colonists express their regret that they are unable to comply with the requirement of the English jury system that the jurors shall come from the immediate neighborhood of the place where the fact was committed ; but they state that they Hening, Statute* at Large, vol. II, 43.
 * Hening, Statutes at Large, vol. I, p. 169.