e house of burgesses, public expresses, and such like.

The authority for levying this rate is given by a short act of assembly,
constantly prepared for that purpose.

Sec. 20. The county levies are such as are peculiar to each county, and
laid by the justices upon all tithable persons, for defraying the charge
of their counties, such as the building and repairing their court
houses, prisons, pillories, stocks, &c., and the payment of all
services, rendered to the county in general.

Sec. 21. The parish levies are laid by the vestry, for the payment of all
charges incident to the several parishes, such as the building,
furnishing, and adorning their churches and chapels, buying glebes and
building upon them, paying their ministers, readers, clerks, and
sextons.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE COURTS OF LAW IN VIRGINIA.

Sec. 22. I have already, in the chronology of the government, hinted what
the constitution of their courts was in old time, and that appeals lay
from the general court to the assembly; that the general court, from the
beginning, took cognizance of all causes whatsoever, both ecclesiastical
and civil, determining everything by the standard of equity and good
conscience. They used to come to the merits of the cause as soon as they
could without injustice, never admitting such impertinences of form and
nicety as were not absolutely necessary; and when the substance of the
case was sufficiently debated, they used directly to bring the suit to a
decision. By this method, all fair actions were prosecuted with little
attendance, all just debts were recovered with the least expense of
money and time, and all the tricking and foppery of the law happily
avoided.

The Lord Colepepper, who was a man of admirable sense, and well skilled
in the laws of England, admired the construction of their courts, and
kept them close to this plain method, retrenching some innovations that
were then creeping into them, under the notion of form, although, at the
same time, he was the occasion of taking away the liberty of appeals to
the assembly.

But the Lord Howard, who succeeded him, endeavored to introduce as many
of the English forms as he could, being directly opposite to the Lord
Colepepper in that point.

And lastly, Governor Nicholson, a man the least acquainted with law of
any of them, endeavored to introduce all the quirks of the English
proceedings, by the help of some wretched pettifoggers, who had the
directi